


Sanditon continued - a novella

by thesispyre2007



Category: Sanditon (TV 2019), Sanditon - Jane Austen
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesispyre2007/pseuds/thesispyre2007
Summary: This is an experiment. In writing this I have created a pastiche of Jane Austen's and Andrew Davies's worlds. I started with AD's version of Sanditon and tried to imagine what sort of story JA might have written after that cliffhanger ending, loosely following the outline that I wrote for series 2. I have tried to do the impossible by imitating her (inimitable) voice and moralizing tone, and as a result many of the scenes and conversations have been adapted and/or lifted from JA's works (including details from her Sanditon fragment). It was fiendishly difficult to write male conversations in what I imagine to be JA's voice since I had no examples to base it on. In such cases I turned to George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell and even to Tolstoy to get a sense of a male world or a male sensibility - for that reason you will find many scenes/conversations that are also adapted from North and South, Wives and Daughters, Middlemarch and Anna Karenin. I had a lot of fun writing this but took many liberties with JA and shamelessly lifted from other beloved 19th-century books - so be warned!There are actually 25 chapters here - despite what it says. I just didn't know how to post in AO3 back in December!***COMPLETE***
Relationships: Charlotte Heywood & Sidney Parker, Charlotte Heywood/Sidney Parker
Comments: 139
Kudos: 249





	Sanditon continued - a novella

**Author's Note:**

> Scenes and conversations adapted from other books will be followed by an abbreviation of the book title in parentheses  
> P&P - Pride and Prejudice  
> S&S - Sense and Sensibility  
> MP - Mansfield Park  
> E - Emma  
> NA - Northanger Abbey  
> W&D - Wives and Daughters  
> N&S - North and South  
> AK - Anna Karenin  
> MM - Middlemarch

Chapter 1

Willingden was a moderate-sized village, which until recently had been in the old English style, containing only two houses superior in appearance to those of the yeoman and labourers: the mansion of Charlotte's ‘squire father with its high walls, great gates, and old trees, substantial and unmodernised; and the compact parsonage, enclosed in its own neat garden, with a vine trained round its casements. Upon the marriage of Charlotte’s eldest brother, Edward, the village had received the improvement of a cottage for his residence. (P) By the time her carriage reached the village, Charlotte had been travelling for four hours. She soon passed her brother’s pretty house and about a quarter of a mile further passed through the sweep gate and up the drive to Willingden Hall to find herself amongst the happy clamour of her younger brothers and sisters. The affectionate greetings of Mr and Mrs Heywood, who had missed their eldest daughter as much as possible with attentions diverted by ten other demands on their time, brought before her mind the necessity of shielding her family from any solicitude on her account. Mr and Mrs Heywood were not insensible to the change in their daughter however, and they agreed privately that the reserved young lady before them was much changed. Michaelmas came and went without any material change in her spirits, but as Charlotte lost no time in making herself useful on the estate, her parents were soon reassured that it was perhaps natural to find home dull after the diversions of a bathing place in summer. 

Before Alison, however, all pretense was impossible, and in the privacy of their chamber her sister’s intelligent eye, lively wit, and intimate knowledge of Charlotte’s nature soon led to greater openness.

“My dear sister, I confess I am amazed by what you have told me. Papa would be extremely unhappy to hear of it! That Mr. Sidney Parker should engage your affections and yet promise himself to another and for her fortune alone – without any true regard – is shocking. It is unfeeling and ungentlemanly! Surely you must see that? He must be truly unworthy of you, Charlotte; though I confess there would be few who would be worthy for a most partial sister!” 

“No Alison, you are wrong. He is not so unworthy as you believe him; he has broken no faith with me. There was no engagement, no public declaration. But I would not have Mama and Papa know of it for the world.”

“But he told you that he loved you?”

“Yes – no! At our last parting it was implied, but honour prevented him from declaring it outright. I cannot bear that you would think ill of him! His actions have caused me great pain, but they were not of his making and were forced upon him by circumstances – to choose between his own happiness and the wellbeing of his family and countless other families besides was a responsibility that fell on his shoulders alone. How many among us could make such a decision! But Oh Alison, to be divided from him for ever without hearing of one instance that could make me desire the connection any less! Nothing has proved him unworthy. I have had to contend with suffering in secret while his relations rejoice at seeing Sanditon saved. I have endured in silence the jealous insolence of Mrs Campion toward myself as well as her daily humiliation of Mr. Sidney. I am so grateful to be home; I could not bear it any longer.” (S&S)

The tenderest embraces followed this confession, but the tumult of Charlotte’s feelings confused and distressed her sister. For her own part, Charlotte did not know how much ought to be revealed. The engagement between Mrs Campion and Mr Parker could only have one meaning for Alison, whose experience beyond Willingden mirrored her own only a few months previous. Charlotte’s misery at being unable to properly convey all of what she knew of Mr Parker’s goodness was acute. Her sister, she knew, was not wholly convinced by her defence of him but neither was she as censorious as she had first been. The relief of confession was great, but it soon gave way to a fear of having inadequately conveyed the difficulty of the situation and of the parting on both sides.

She had never thought to be anything less than open with her family before, but now the demands of duty and of family affection weighed heavily upon her, and once unburdened, Charlotte determined to strive for greater discretion and self-control in future. Alison was careful not to broach the subject with her again, and Charlotte was grateful to be left to struggle with her own thoughts of what might have been in private.

Chapter 2

Sidney’s engagement to Mrs Eliza Campion was announced and a date was fixed for a mid-May wedding in London. A long engagement was deemed desirable, as Sidney’s immediate attention must be on rebuilding what the fire had destroyed and in properly overseeing Eliza’s investment. The couple’s consolation for this unusually long engagement was that there would be plenty of time to settled into married life thereafter. For her own part, a distaste for Sanditon gave Mrs Campion reason enough to decamp to London as quickly as possible, where she planned to partake in the ceaseless rounds of visiting that were demanded of her in Town; Mr Parker’s presence for these delights was unnecessary and undesired. It is well known that there is nothing like a separation between lovers to make the heart grow fonder, and there was no couple more inclined to test the truth of this maxim than Mrs Eliza Campion and Mr Sidney Parker. If Mr Parker felt any distress at the 40-mile distance between himself and his betrothed, his feelings were firmly disguised by expressions of the greatest fortitude. 

Mr Sidney Parker’s devotion to Sanditon in the wake of his engagement was renewed with a fervour that no one had seen in him heretofore. Sanditon’s business concerns and those of his brother Tom took up the bulk of his time to the exclusion of much else and he was often found looking over the accounts in the study at Trafalgar House, on the scaffolding inspecting the rebuilding with Mr Stringer, and of an evening in the Crowne hotel. What he did in the latter premises was only ever surmised at by the people of Sanditon but it was whispered by the servants in Trafalgar House that all September his evenings had been spent in liquor and that he came home drunk in the wee hours of the morning under cover of darkness. In truth, Sidney Parker was looking far from well. Though by day his fine figure could still be seen striding though the village about his business, his visage wore an expression of heavy care and weariness that greatly worried his friends. Even Mr Crowe, whose observation rarely strayed further than the next bottle of wine or a pair of finely turned ankles on a girl, noted the change in his friend and wondered at it in his letters to Babington.

To his ward, Miss Lambe, Sidney had only ever been a reminder of the home and family she had lost. Her considerable resentment at him for being the means of separating her from Otis Molyneux had lately been fortified by mortification on Charlotte’s behalf. 

Georgiana was observing the dull hum of Sanditon’s busy main street when she heard the doorbell which soon brought Sidney before her in Mrs Griffith’s drawing room.  
He seemed astonished and discomfited to find her alone. Though he now undertook to visit his ward more regularly, ever since the night of the Midsummer ball he had avoided meeting her without the protection of company.

“You find me all alone this morning Mr Parker,” she said. “Mrs Griffiths and the Misses Beaufort have gone to the rectory for religious instruction. I have chosen to improve my mind here in peace.”

They sat down, and Sidney ventured to mention, as he had done previously, his concern for her health and his wish that she might consider returning to London for the season and to take her share of society and amusements there, but she met this suggestion with scorn: London held only memories of the most painful kind. Georgiana distrusted her own capacity for civility any further than was necessary and they were in danger of sinking into total silence, but feeling suddenly curious to hear what he might have to say on the subject of Charlotte, she shortly observed.

“How very suddenly Charlotte quitted Sanditon last month. I had formed the impression she intended to stay for the autumn. I wonder what changed her mind and if she will ever return to this dull little town.”

Sidney’s brow furrowed, but he merely replied,

“It is probable that she will spend little time here in the future. She is at a time in her life when she will be much engaged with new friends and engagements.”(P&P)

“Do you think so? It’s true indeed that Charlotte has the best understanding and truest heart in the world and attaches people to her wherever she goes.” She replied pointedly,

“And upon reflection, I think you are right, Mr Parker. I don’t doubt that she will soon be writing to me of new engagements and better friends, perhaps even of her own engagement in time.”

She felt something like regret at these words upon observing their effect: Sidney rose abruptly from his seat and moved towards the mantelpiece, staring down into the fire. Georgiana was surprised at his discomposure, but remained silent, wondering what might come next. After several minutes of silence, he looked towards her in an agitated manner.

“Georgiana, for God’s sake. If you have any word of her. If you know how she is and if she’s… in good health. Please, tell me.” This last sentence was barely a discernable whisper.

“Is this the real reason for your coming here?” In spite of her deep-rooted mistrust of him she could not be insensible to his evident feelings for her friend, but Georgiana hardened her heart against any compassion by remembering the forbearance and misery Charlotte had so bravely concealed at Lord and Lady Babington’s wedding. 

“Do you think that anything would tempt me to assuage the guilt of a man who has been the means of ruining the happiness, perhaps forever, of a most beloved friend? A girl who found me at my loneliest and saved me from the depths of despair? I owe Charlotte more than you could ever know and certainly more than I do you!” (P&P)

Georgiana’s eyes filled with tears as she remembered Charlotte’s many kindnesses to her: at Lady Denham’s luncheon, on the cliffs above Sanditon, and later in London after her abduction when she had almost lost all hope; she paused for a moment to compose herself and then turned her full contempt on Sidney once more.

“You made her believe that you loved her! Did it give you pleasure to think that you could easily win the most trusting and generous heart in the world? I may be younger than Miss Heywood, but I have seen more of the world and of you to know that people are not always what they seem. I told her you weren’t to be trusted, but I should have told her what sort of man you were in Antigua – dissolute, gambling, desperate, debauched. I know it all! My father believed you could be better. Heaven knows why, for all you’ve done to prove it since he took you in. To marry for money after all! He would be shocked by the vulgarity of it; and to a woman such as Mrs Campion, whose malice and jealousy knows no bounds and for whom it is clear you have no regard! Of all things, I should never, never have expected this of you, Sidney! And to think that you judged Mr Molyneux as an adventurer and fortune hunter!”

At this Sidney started back as though struck. His appearance was pale and the very great disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the appearance of composure and would not open his lips until he believed himself to have attained it. The silence was dreadful, but at length he replied in low and serious tones. (P&P)

“I cannot but acknowledge the truth of everything you have said, except for one thing – my feelings for Charlotte. In that instance, you are mistaken. There is no one who knows better how trusting and loving is her heart and what great joy and pride there is to be found in earning her affection. I would not have hurt her for the world if there was no other…”

Sidney trailed off and shook his head in agony. He seemed to struggle to find words as Georgiana observed him questioningly. 

“I do not deserve her. That is true. And she is lost to me for ever, so I must somehow find a way to carry on for the sake of those who still depend upon me. I live only in dread of one event.”

“What do you mean?”

“Miss Heywood’s marriage when her heart is gained by someone else more deserving.”

And with these words he almost ran out of the room. (S&S)

Chapter 3

During dinner that evening at Trafalgar House, Sidney barely spoke a word; but when the servants had withdrawn and the children were brought down to wish their elders good night and disturb their quiet as much as possible, Sidney’s mood seemed to improve. The joyful noise made by his nieces and nephews calmed his frayed nerves and he soon had all three children on his knee, crawling across his shoulders and pulling on his coat. Not for the first time did Mary Parker have occasion to note his wan and tired looks. She saw with uneasiness his low spirits and her concern for Sidney’s wellbeing increased with every day that passed. She took comfort however in the fact that although Diana and Arthur Parker often fancied themselves delicate, Sidney was not one to succumb to illness easily and that the Parkers in general were a hale and hearty race. As regards his physical health she felt secure, but as for his mind – it was evident he was very unhappy. And so, it was with great pleasure that Mary watched him dance the children contentedly about in his arms, his cares for a time forgotten. She could not help but say to him admiringly:

“You look very well with the children around you so, Sidney.”

“They are dear, Mary; and it gives me very great pleasure that I am able to see them more frequently while I am in Sanditon.”

By some instinct, Mary was reluctant to bring up Sidney’s engagement or to discuss it with him. She often wondered about his feelings on the subject, but Sidney was so inscrutable that she never dared to question him about Mrs Campion as she might about other topics. 

“We are all very grateful I am sure Sidney. Tom could not do without you, and I am hardly less dependent on you myself! No one handles Jenny’s mischief as well as you. Although, dear Charlotte was perhaps the only other as skilled in handling the children. I do so miss her company! Sanditon has been dreadfully dull without her this past month. But I received a letter with all the news from Willingden just this morning.” 

Mary bent to produce the letter from her work table, and looking up suddenly caught, with no little astonishment, a queer expression flitting across Sidney’s face. He had not yet learned to hear her name without emotion and though he rearranged his own features quickly, the children, catching the mention of Charlotte, began shouting with boisterous energy after the return of Admiral Heywood. Sidney could contain himself no longer, he gently removed the children from his lap and excused himself from the room murmuring about papers that needed attending. Mary could not recollect ever seeing him so agitated, and later as the children were bustled away by their nurse, Mary turned to her husband. 

“Tom, my dear," she said as he entered the drawing room. “Have you not noticed that of late Sidney – since his engagement I mean – does not seem quite himself. It is quite marked, do you not think so, my dear? I cannot imagine what might be ailing him.”

“Nonsense, my dear Mary! Sidney is as well as it is possible to be, and why should he not be, indeed? He will finally wed the lady he has waited for these ten years and he has saved our beloved Sanditon in the bargain!”

Mary had long since despaired of making her husband see beyond his immediate concerns and yet she still marvelled at his ability to shape realities to suit his own desires and wishes regardless of all evidence to the contrary. Her affection and gratitude had made many allowances for Tom, but nine years of marriage had also taught her that his nature, though good, could also be reckless and selfish in pursuit of its own ends. He had determined with single-minded fervour that Sanditon must be a fashionable bathing-place, and so it must be at all costs, though she sometimes wished she would never hear a word spoken about the place again. 

Sidney did not emerge from the library all evening and as Mary put down her work and made ready to retire, she glanced uneasily in the partially closed door. There she saw him seated at the desk with his head in his hands. Shocked and saddened by his unmistakable despair, a new suspicion took root in Mary’s mind and she determined to find out more if she could.

Chapter 4

Some months after Charlotte’s return to Willingden, a letter arrived from Lady Susan. 

My dear Charlotte,

I must confess myself surprised at news I have heard in Town of our mutual acquaintance. I cannot understand it! If I were not afraid of judging too harshly I would be tempted to say that there is a strong appearance of duplicity in all of this. If you do not chuse to understand me, please forgive my impertinence and allow me instead to speak on more pleasant subjects and to make you an offer which I hope you will find irresistible: 

If your mother can spare you, I would be most grateful if you would favour me with your company in London after Christmas. I cannot promise that our friends the Parkers will often make up our party – I understand that Mrs Parker and the two elder brothers plan to remain in Sanditon for the season on account of business – but may I be very bold and suggest that the pleasure of a visit will not be all on my side? I shall endeavour to introduce you to the very best amusements and society that London can offer a lady of your age and situation. Please make haste in sending me your favourable answer and a servant and chaise will be sent to collect you after Christmas.

Yours etc.  
S. W. 

On being informed of the invitation, Mrs Heywood was persuaded that such an excursion would benefit her eldest daughter. Charlotte’s over-exertion at home had resulted in a weariness of heart and mind that had become plain, try as she might to conceal it from her parents. Willingden was so very dear to her, but its comforts were too familiar to banish the unwelcome thoughts that seemed to arise unbidden at all hours of the day and night. Mrs Heywood had seen much to concern her in her daughter’s looks and welcomed this opportunity for a change of scene, which came at very little expense and inconvenience to them all. Though Charlotte was forced into a little falsehood by way of explanation for the opening words of Lady Susan’s letter, the invitation was looked upon favourably by both her parents who were rarely backward in promoting their children’s opportunities to get out into the world as much as possible. Charlotte herself was inclined to refuse, citing a reluctance to leave her family again after so long an absence in Sanditon and protested that she was needed on the estate to arrange the lessons she had suggested for a few of the labourers’ children on the estates.

“Nay Charlotte!” her mother gently reproached her. “We can spare you very well I am sure. Though your acquaintance with that great lady has been short, I am satisfied that Lady Susan’s home and character are everything that they should be. She is a woman whose society can afford you much pleasure and whose protection will give you consequence. These objections are nonsensical, my dear. You will have more pleasure in being in London than in frequenting the limited society that Willingden can offer this winter. I would have every young woman of your condition in life acquainted with the manners and amusements of London if they may, so long as you are able to return to us in the spring without expectation of equal amusements at home.” (S&S)

Charlotte submitted to her mother’s superior judgement and to the subsequent arrangements, and with less reluctance than she had expected to feel. Though with regard to herself it was a matter of unconcern whether she went to Town or not, she did have a great wish to see Lady Susan again and her letter had made very evident that she would not be subject to the pain of seeing Sidney Parker. (S&S) 

For her brothers and sisters, Charlotte’s embarking on another visit abroad was a cause for great excitement, and the expectation and preparation for it heightened the already considerable joys of the Christmas period. In any other family the pleasures and advantages of Charlotte’s season in London with Lady Susan would have sown jealousy and resentment between sisters, but Alison’s unselfish pleasure at the prospect of Charlotte’s visit to Town was unsurpassed, though quite naturally increased by the knowledge that she too, being only three years younger and no less pretty and obliging, would sample the delights of society in Sanditon, for Mary had issued an invitation to join them in the summer. Thus Alison’s good spirits succeeded in cheering her sister over the festive period, and more than once did she surmise on the day and hour when Charlotte might curtsey before the Prince Regent himself.

Chapter 5

Charlotte reached Lady Susan’s townhouse in Hanover Square in very good time. The chaise and four and the improved turnpikes to London made relatively short and comfortable work of a journey that she had often heard her father lament as an impossible inconvenience on the two occasions a year that he was required to collect his dividends in Town. She was nonetheless glad to be released after her journey from the confinements of a carriage and ready to enjoy the luxury of a good fire and a warm meal. Lady Susan’s house was very handsome and handsomely fitted up in a modern style that managed to be neither gaudy nor uselessly fine. (P&P) The most fashionable rooms in the house were the drawing room and dining parlour, which, Charlotte noted, contained elements of Greek and Roman, and what she could only image was the Egyptian style she had read about. Here was a change indeed from the comfortable and old-fashioned apartments of Willingden Hall where the oak-panelled great hall and family rooms had not seen any great change in decoration for generations despite, or perhaps in spite of, the tastes and wishes of countless brides.

Lady Susan received her warmly and Charlotte was immediately put in possession of a very comfortable apartment: its walls were papered, its floors carpeted, and its furniture a hodgepodge of tables and chairs left over from the redecoration of the more public rooms below. (NA) Here Charlotte found she could be truly alone with her thoughts for the first time since leaving Sanditon, and she reminded herself that she must strive not to sink into the self-indulgence of dwelling on circumstances that were beyond her control. As she was expected to present herself for dinner in less than two hours, Charlotte lost no time in attending to her toilette, gratefully accepting the services of a Lady Susan’s maid. 

Dinner was a quiet tete-à-tete between the two ladies who, in reacquainting themselves, found that neither time nor distance had lessened their interest in one another nor their scope for conversation. When the servants withdrew, Susan gently questioned Charlotte regarding her situation, and perceived that her friend was only just learning to keep her composure on the subject. A few delicate questions were enough to ascertain that there had indeed been a great deal of openly declared affection between Charlotte and Sidney and that the circumstances of Sidney Parker and Eliza Campion’s sudden engagement in June had come only a few days after the fire in Sanditon. It was a badly handled affair, and Tom Parker had much to answer for! Lady Susan’s own discreet inquiries had uncovered that he was not a gentleman known for his business acumen and that his seaside project had succeeded only insofar as his own private wealth and that of his friends and brothers had allowed, there were very few beyond that small circle who had seen the venture as a wise investment, and after the fire any further financial assistance was discussed as wanton folly in the drawing rooms of London. The Parkers were a respectable family, but there was a limit to the open purses of society. Lady Susan kept these thoughts to herself, however, and had leisure to wonder, not for the first time in her life, that the untrammeled vanity of one man could result in so much misery for others. 

In the evening a small party of no less than thirty of Lady Susan’s closest friends assembled at Hanover Square for supper and cards. Though Charlotte’s white muslin dress had done very well for the assembly room in Sanditon, here in Lady Susan’s drawing room among a select company of the London beau monde Charlotte felt her want of fashion acutely. Susan drew Charlotte’s arm in her own and took a turn with her about the room where more than one gentleman’s eye was drawn by her handsome figure, soft cheek, and bright eyes. Introductions and polite inquiries were made but Charlotte drew a little back as the others conversed about people about whom she knew nothing and cared less. But she soon found her attention particularly solicited by Lady Susan’s cousin, Sir John Fairfax, who had been appointed to interest and amuse Charlotte during her visit. 

Sir John was very good-looking, amiable and witty, and in addition to being a baronet he was said to have an estate in Hampshire worth almost £4000 a year. His manners were so exactly what they ought to be, so charming, so easy, so agreeable to her, that Charlotte could compare his company in excellence to none of her acquaintance but one. They were different in depth of feeling, but they were equally good. There was no doubt of his being a sensible man, ten minutes were enough to verify that, his expressions, his choice of subject, his humour, his knowing where to stop – it was all the operation of a discerning mind and Charlotte was grateful for it. The clock on the mantelpiece had struck half past eleven before Sir John or any of them seemed to feel that it had been long. And Charlotte retired that evening in better spirits than she had any right to expect. She could not have supposed that her first evening in London could have passed so well! (P)

Chapter 6

The Parkers were a very respectable landed family whose connection to Sanditon stretched back over several generations. They were second in the neighbourhood only to the Denhams, and the home of their forefathers comprised a small estate with a respectable rent roll and Whytcliffe, a snug manor house located two miles from the sea and belonging to the village of Sanditon despite its separate gardens and shrubberies. (E) Mr Henry Parker, father to the current generation of Parkers, had united a solid good sense with a very handsome person. Though it was his good looks that had first won him the hand of Miss Alicia Blakewood of Bath and her fortune of £30,000, it was his good heart that had made their married life together so fruitful and pleasant. Mrs Parker was a handsome and clever woman as well as a kind and affectionate wife and mother, but she was immoderate and prone to a self-indulgence that only the efforts of her husband’s good sense could mollify. Her interest in Sanditon lay in comparing it unfavourably to Bath, which had formed the scene of her youth and beauty and lingered in her imagination as a model of all that was elegant and fashionable. She died shortly after her fourth child was born, leaving behind a husband, three children and an infant son. Henry Parker’s grief was such that contrary to advice he turned his back on all thoughts of a new mother for his children. At fifteen, his daughter Diana was just old enough and capable enough to take over much the of housekeeping, and Mr Parker occupied himself instead with establishing the prosperity of his family and his neighbours. 

This prosperity would include him for only two years more, for Henry Parker was thrown from his horse and suffered an injury that after several months of illness ultimately took his life. Although Henry Parker’s ambitions for Sanditon were more modest than his son’s would prove to be – he sought only to establish a stable and regular trade and improve the roads between the village and its nearest market town – his efforts were such that he was still remembered there as a liberal and fair-minded local magistrate and patron eighteen years after his death – the name of Parker thus held much weight in Sanditon. He left behind the estate and a house in Bedford Square, which passed to his eldest son Thomas, and his final weeks were comforted by the knowledge that Sidney’s independence had long been settled by collateral inheritance and his younger children’s fortunes were secured through marriage settlements. Nonetheless, he sent for Tom as soon as his danger was known and asked with all the strength and urgency that his illness could command that he guide and advise his younger brothers and sisters in the years ahead. (S&S)

Mr Tom Parker was very much affected by the recommendation of a beloved parent at such a time, and he promised to do everything in his power for his siblings. And at the age of eighteen he found himself head of a family with all the attendant responsibilities of that role. He was by nature a happy man, optimistic to the point of delusion, and in general well respected, for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of his duties to his family and to his dependents. He was imaginative and clever; eager in everything he did; his sorrows, his joys could have no moderation. He was generous, amiable, interesting: he was everything but prudent. The resemblance between him and his mother was strikingly great in this regard. (S&S) Tom Parker’s good fortune and respectability was further increased by his choice of wife, for he was inordinately in love with his bride. In Mary Jennings he had found a reflection of all his best qualities – amiability, generosity, and loyalty – with the added benefit of a solid good sense which, had he consulted it more frequently, might have saved them all much grief and pain.

Henry Parker’s second son, Sidney, was very like his father: by nature blessed with a handsome face and fine figure, and with intelligence, sensibility, health and vigour. From a young age he possessed a strength of understanding and judgement, which enabled him frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in his older brother which must generally have led to imprudence. (S&S) In addition, he had an excellent heart – his disposition was affectionate and his feelings were very strong; and it is with this strength of feeling that his one fault lay. After the loss of both parents he often struggled to govern his feelings and temper. He had been educated at Westminister where his loyalty to friends often led him into scrapes, and during his time at Oxford had suffered a great injury in love. The agony of this disappointment overpowered him for many years, and left to his own devices without his father to advise and restrain him from the self-indulgence of youthful despair he was encouraged into grievous lapses of conduct. Sidney’s great shame at these early missteps resolved him against ever admitting consolation for his broken heart and he became a shadow of his younger trusting self. Upon his coming of age, with his brother Tom’s assistance, Sidney departed for Antigua to build his fortune further. He returned to England three years later a grown man but inscrutable, cold and reserved. His attachment and loyalty to his family and to his oldest friends was the one form of affection he allowed himself and in that too he was sometimes sorely tried. His excellent father had taught him what was right, but had not lived long enough to teach him to correct his temper or to moderate his reactions. 

Diana Parker was between Tom and Sidney in age and though she was good humoured and well-disposed, she too had not learned moderation. She spent much of her time and income in seeking cures for imaginary ailments and in displacing her energies in ministering to her younger brother Arthur, to whom she had fallen little short of a mother in affection. 

The youngest of the Parkers, Arthur, was not above twenty-one, and had imbibed much of his sister’s nonsense. Convinced that he was almost as great an invalid as she, he was encouraged to remain idle and to live off his income without seeking useful activity or profession. Under different circumstances he might have lived very differently, for in truth, Arthur’s nature united the optimism, kindness, strength of feeling, and vigour of his older brothers, with a sensitivity of observation that often surprised them all in its quiet good sense. 

Chapter 7 

“My dear brother,” said Tom Parker to his brother Sidney one evening as they took a glass of claret together in the library at Trafalgar House. “I have been working on the most wonderful new idea for Sanditon!” 

Such words from Tom were wont to strike fear in Sidney of late. He had an unholy dread of any scheme he might conjure up. His strong sense of duty and honour prevented him from allowing Tom’s plans to go too far, but from force of habit he found it difficult to deny his brother anything and he dreaded situations where it would be unavoidable to resist Tom’s enthusiasm. He was not to be disappointed in this instance. 

“With Mrs Campion’s investment in our project I believe that we must now set our sights higher than we have done heretofore. If we are to attract the very best quality of visitor to Sanditon we must have a pleasure garden and a racetrack! We simply must, Sidney! I have given this some thought and it seems to me that the only sensible place for it would be our old home. The prospect there is very fine and the gardens are sheltered – it seems an ideal situation to attract visitors for concerts and excursions. What say you?” 

Tom unfurled his documents on the writing table, revealing carefully drawn plans for an elaborate pleasure complex to rival Vauxhall and Newmarket. Whytcliffe house, its orchards, gardens and shrubberies were to be cleared away, and in its place Tom proposed to erect an ornate pavilion in the style of Brighton.

Sidney’s features darkened in dismay. 

“I cannot in all conscience approve this new plan, Tom,” he said after a pause to choose his words. “It is my duty to remind you that it is this kind of scheme that almost sent you to the debtor’s prison a few short months ago! You have already remortgaged and let our parents’ house to tenants until next summer to pay your debts. We cannot take such risks again and certainly not with Eliza’s money. Better that we concentrate on rebuilding the terrace, improving the prospects of the people who live in Sanditon, and look towards retrenching our expenses and our plans so that we may enjoy having a return on our investment in the future.”

Tom’s disappointment at being so rebuffed was great.

“I am surprised at you, brother! Has your faith in our project vanished overnight? You cannot perceive the importance of this! You must see that our investment relies on attracting more visitors, and without we have no chance of competing with Brighton or Weymouth or any of the other sea-bathing places.”

“That is the salient point, Tom. We cannot and must not attempt to compete with Brighton! The very best we can hope for is to develop a tolerable bathing place that will attract those visitors who have neither the taste nor the income for Brighton. To do anything else would be to risk the livelihoods of those who already live here and I am afraid I cannot sanction it. It is being reckless in the extreme. This must be an end to the subject!”

Sidney stood back, secure enough in his feeling of right to weather whatever storm might come next from his elder brother, whose face indeed showed all the discontent of thwarted fancy. 

“Is this how I am to be dismissed? Do the ties of family mean nothing to you, Sidney? Can you not perceive how much I have sacrificed for Sanditon? No, for you have always been determined to remain apart from this family’s concerns. And now when I ask for your confidence in this one matter, you reproach me! And in such terms! You have always been selfish, I just never thought you would turn your back on me as well.”

Sidney's feelings could stand no more of this unfounded reproach. He moved towards the desk that thankfully lay between them and with barely repressed anger and agitation cried,

“How dare you question my concern for this family! And to speak to me of your sacrifices!? It is beyond belief! You have no idea what you have asked of me already, what I have given up for you and for Sanditon – my honour, my self-respect, my future happiness, my Ch…”

Sidney brought his hand down violently on the table in a choked rage, drowning out what in another moment might have been revealed. He looked up to see Mary watching uneasily in the doorway. She had heard raised voices and had come in time to see her husband and her brother facing each other across the table, and to hear Sidney’s sad and desperate words.

Mary’s frightened expression brought Sidney back to himself. 

“Forgive me, Mary. Please excuse me.”

He rushed past her into the hallway, and in another moment they heard him open the front door and quit the house.

Tom’s surprise and dismay at what had occurred was great indeed. He was very attached to his younger brother and although he had been Sidney’s guardian from a child, Tom little understood himself how much he relied on his judgement and good opinion as a man. Sidney had rarely spoken to him in anything other than respectful tones before and never with such anger. 

“My brother has taken leave of his senses! I cannot ever recall a time when he has spoken to me in such a manner. For a moment I really thought he might strike me!”

Mary poured her husband another glass of wine and begged that he sit a while and steady his nerves. 

“I cannot imagine what has effected this change in him.”

“Can you not, my dear?”

“Sidney has all he has ever desired! He is to marry the lady whom he has loved these ten years at least, and to crown it all, her fortune is such that we may now rebuild Sanditon to a standard I had barely dared to dream of before!” 

Up to this point, Mary had observed Tom’s perplexed expression, with tender concern, but her impatience with his selfish expediency could no longer be contained. Exasperated, she cried

“Tom! How can you be so unfeeling? Are you so blind to all sense that you cannot see the depth of your brother’s misery? And can you not perceive that his misery dates from the very day he returned from London to inform us of his engagement to Mrs Campion? His looks, his temper, his entire disposition have altered from that date. I fear that he has formed this attachment solely for your sake and for the sake of our children! Sidney could no more see us suffer than he could cut off his own arm, and it was your irresponsible actions, your blind devotion to Sanditon above all other claims and concerns that caused the evil.”

Mary paused a moment to survey the effect her words had on her husband before continuing.

“And it is not merely that which you must face, Tom. It is not merely the responsibility for Sidney’s unhappiness and despair that must be laid at your door, it is also that of our dear Charlotte, whom we brought into our home as a most beloved and valued guest and whose parents entrusted us with her safety and happiness. We sent her back to them chastened and altered – I will never forgive myself for it!”

“Charlotte, my dear? What can she have to do with this!”

“I am convinced that Sidney and Charlotte formed an attachment, and one as strong as any I have seen, based as it was in a true compatibility of mind and disposition. They love each other still, I am sure, and two more deserving hearts cannot be imagined. Your selfish mistakes have been the cause and the means of separating them forever, and for the basest of reasons. Oh, God forgive you, what have you done!”

“Mary, what can you be saying?” Full of concern, Tom rushed to console his wife who, overcome with emotion, had suddenly put her hand to her face to hide her great distress. She rested her head on his breast for a moment before righting herself and saying with trembling composure.

“You must do everything in your power to remedy this, Tom. Our continued comfort must not come at the expense of dividing them from each other. I would rather give up Trafalgar House and quit Sanditon all together than be the means of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability and the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind.” (P&P)

With these words she hastily left the room.

Tom Parker was overpowered by his wife’s revelation. The tumult of his mind was painfully great, an altered creature quieted and stupefied, he sank into the nearest chair for support.

Poor Tom, suddenly conscious of his errors as a brother and a husband, suffered greatly. He looked back to the events in London and the brief conversation he had had with Sidney at the Regatta, and examining his heart felt that he ought not to have allowed the engagement, that his brother’s sentiments, had he cared to know them, had been sufficiently clear to render him culpable in rejoicing in the connection with Mrs Campion and that in doing so he had sacrificed the right to the expedient, and had been governed by motives of selfishness and worldliness. (MP)

Chapter 8

There were very few in Sanditon with better sense than Mr James Stringer. He had a fair reputation as an excellent young man and son; although merely a foreman, his manners had sincerity and good humour to recommend them and his mind more true gentility than many a wealthy London dandy who drove a curricle and had attended one of the public schools. Mr Stringer always strove to speak to the purpose; he was handsome, open, straightforward, and very well judging, and his clarity of opinion was sought out by both his workers and his betters. (E) He was a talented draughtsman and would have been in a fair way to becoming an architect of significance given the opportunity. Despite all appearances to the contrary, Mr Stringer was no less human than the rest of us, and thus he is to be excused for the one brief moment of folly in his young life during which he entertained hopes of attaching to him a young lady whose cheerful demeanor and open and engaging manners he had fleetingly mistook for something more. No harm was done in the matter, however, for James was neither so far gone in his affections nor so foolhardy as to attempt to opportune the lady, whose superiority of situation he felt most acutely, without explicit encouragement, and she left Sanditon at the end of the summer undisturbed by his feelings and assured of his continued friendship and good wishes for her health and happiness. This health he could not but observe had been lately affected by troubles which had thwarted her expectations and dashed her hopes of future happiness, and his indignation was very great that the love of such a woman could be treated as pearls before swine. 

It was with such reflections that James Stringer came across Mr Sidney Parker in the Crowne hotel. For it was to the Crowne that Sidney had fled after his disagreement with Tom. I shall leave it to the reader’s judgement whether this meeting was fortunate or not, but as Sidney had already drunk more than his fair share of wine in fretful vexation for over three-quarters of an hour, he saw no good reason not to seek Stringer’s company and conversation and made signals for him to take a chair and a glass with him.  
After a moment’s hesitation Mr Stringer took the chair offered, but observing Sidney’s state of mind wisely refused all drink. The two men spoke of the progress of work on the new terrace, of new plans and measurements, of accounts and computations, but there was no ease in their discussions. Indeed, Stringer’s countenance throughout was one of cold civility. Sidney’s fine sensibilities noted this awkwardness at once and emboldened by drink and silent despondency he ventured to press him further on his curious attitude.

“Come Mr Stringer, you are dull tonight. If you will not drink with me, at least have the courtesy to tell me straight what it is that puts you so out of temper?

Mr Stringer glanced up at him with a flash of anger in his eye that quickly settled to calm disdain.

“I do not take you at you word, Sir. I would rather wish you good night now, and hope to find you in better form on the morrow.”

Stringer made to go but was detained by a restraining hand on his arm.

“If I did not want to know, I would not have asked you,” he growled, compelling Mr Stringer back to his seat. “Tell me man, what is it?”

There was a moment’s pause as Stringer considered whether his impulse was a wise one, but determining suddenly on a course of action, he leant across the table and with an eagerness that surprised him, gave expression in lowered voice to the repressed feelings and indignation of the past few months.

“Since you insist upon it, Mr Parker, I am glad of the opportunity to speak freely. Though I may wish it unsaid tomorrow. Sir, I cannot but wonder at any man who calls himself a gentleman that would spurn the affections of the best, brightest, and bravest lady I have ever had the pleasure to be acquainted with! I will not speak her name in this establishment and under these circumstances, but any man who could throw away such a prize surely never deserved it.”

Sidney could not pretend to misunderstand him. Even in his current state his shock was great, but in his heart he could not deny that his pride and vanity were also stung by these words. He was envious that Mr Stringer was in a position to defend Charlotte and to remind him, had he ever been able to forget it, of the injury he had done her. 

“You know nothing of the matter, Stringer!” He said warmly. “You could not possibly perceive the demands of duty and honour that have required me to put my brother and Sanditon before my own wishes. Everyone’s livelihood, including your own, depends upon my marriage.” 

“I confess that I cannot imagine what form of duty and honour could permit a gentleman to sport with the affections of such a lady.” Sidney’s face turned red with rage, and his quick temper got the better of him. Reaching suddenly across the table he grasped Mr Stringer violently by the coat.

“Do not speak of it! You know nothing of my feelings for her! But perhaps you think that she is a prize that you might now win?”

The dimness of their corner of the Crowne happily sheltered the two men from curious eyes, but the precarity of their situation might have soon spilled over into unconcealable violence had a commotion on the other side of the room not broken the spell. With a look of pity, Stringer freed himself from Sidney’s grip and continued. 

“No, you are misinformed. But were I so fortunate as to be in your place I cannot imagine any circumstance that could cause me to give up such a pure and freely given attachment – against honour, against feeling, against any better interest – for the sake of a connection which, based on self-interest as it appears to me, is like to prove a source of future misery for so many. Do not misunderstand me sir, we are all very grateful – it has not escaped notice that your brother’s affairs were not what they should have been be after the fire, and the men have not missed a single payment since you took over his business. I perceive that you care deeply for your family’s welfare and for Sanditon, but you do all of us a disservice if you imagine that the answers to such problems and entanglements will be found in self-pity and dissipation!” 

With that Mr Stringer rose and departed from the inn, leaving Sidney alone with his thoughts once more.

Chapter 9

Charlotte had not been in London a week before she felt herself swept up into a world of dressmakers, parties, balls, concerts, and theatre which heretofore she had only ever imagined. She was grateful, however, for the distraction from her own thoughts, and being released for the first time in her young life from her own usefulness, she sought only to avoid shaming her host with her gaucherie. 

Lady Susan was admirably fitted to introduce a young lady into public, being as fond of going everywhere and seeing everything herself as any beautiful and independent widow of a viscount and daughter of an earl could be. Charlotte’s official entrée into London life could not take place till after three or four days had been spent in learning what was mostly worn, and her chaperone provided sensible advice on articles of fashionable dress and cost. The event of her first introduction to London society was fixed therefore for a large evening party at the Earl and Countess of Blessingdon’s townhouse in St James’s Square. Her hair was cut and dressed by the best hand, her clothes chosen with care, and on the evening in question, Lady Susan and her maid declared she looked quite as she should do. With such encouragement Charlotte hoped at least to pass uncensored through the crowd. As for admiration, it was always very welcome when it came but she did not depend on it and even less so now that there was only one gentleman whose eye she wished to please. (NA) 

They arrived in due time at St James’ Square and as soon as the string of carriages before them would allow, alighted, ascended the stairs, heard their names announced from one landing place to another in an audible voice and entered a room splendidly lit up, quite full of company and insufferably hot. When they had paid their tribute of politeness by curtseying to Lady Blessingdon, they were permitted to mingle in the crowd, and take their share of the heat and inconvenience to which their arrival must necessarily add. (S&S)

Charlotte was observed with much admiration, for she was indeed exceedingly handsome this evening in her simple rose-coloured silk. After three-quarters of an hour spent in introductions and mingling about the room together, Lady Susan sat down to Casino and as Charlotte did not play and was not in spirits for moving about any further she succeeded to a chair at no great distance from the cards table.  
She had not remained in this manner more than a minute before Sir John Fairfax appeared by her side. She happened to look up and happened to smile and he placed himself in a chair by her.  
“Well Miss Heywood,” said he directly, “I hope you are finding the evening agreeable.”

“Very agreeable,” she replied politely.

Sir John was amused by her inability to hide her true feelings.  
“Ah Miss Heywood, that was valiant effort but I am afraid you are not yet so versed at hiding your true feelings that I cannot see them directly. You find it dull and hot and loud.” 

Charlotte had barely any time to protest before Sir John declared  
“And I dare say, I agree with you. These gatherings are often exceedingly tedious.”

“Then why do you come, sir?”

“Always so direct Miss Heywood? Well then. I shall have to be direct as well. Perhaps I came expressly to see you.”

“Me? But you have seen me only once before, Sir. Do not teaze.”

Charlotte felt her cheeks burn, but keeping her composure looked questioningly at him. Sir John was taken aback by the frank and disapproving expression in her face and was ashamed that she should have exposed and rebuffed his shallow flirtation so easily. He moderated his language and in a more lighthearted tone said,

“You are quite right to rebuke me Miss Heywood. I shall be more rational and stick to the usual topics of conversation: Have you ever been to London before; have you yet been to the theatre and the concert and how do you like the place all together. Are you at leisure to satisfy me on these particulars? Shall we begin?”

Charlotte was amused in spite of herself and could not contain a smile when Sir John affected a simpering air and asked,

“Have you visited Town before, madam?

“Yes, sir once.”

“Really!” with affected astonishment.

“Why should you be surprised sir?”

“Why indeed!” said he in a natural tone, “but some emotion must appear to be raised by your reply. Now let us go on. Have you made the acquaintance of Lord and Lady Blessingdon before, madam?”

“Never, sir.”

“Indeed! And have you yet honoured the theatre, the concert, and the drawing room of Lord X.”

“No, sir. I have been in London only a week, but I believe Lady Susan’s plans comprise all of these delights during my visit.” 

“And are you altogether pleased with London?”

“I like it well enough sir.”

“An intriguingly vague answer at the last, Miss Heywood, but no matter as it will provide a subject on which to teaze you when we meet in future. Now I must give one smirk and be rational again.” (NA)

Charlotte ventured a laugh, and Sir John’s object, which was to put her at her ease and to know her a little better, was won.

“In truth Sir John, though I am grateful to Lady Susan for her kindness to me, I cannot feel that London society is where I belong.”

“And why ever not, pray? Surely you can see that you have been greatly admired this evening? Lady Blessingdon herself has remarked upon you.”

Charlotte looked surprised and self-conscious.  
“You teaze me again, Sir,” she said, and after a pause added. “Other people must judge for themselves, and those who spend most of their time in London may think nothing of the country, but I who live in a small village can never find a greater variety of things to be done all day long than at home where there is no shortage of ways to be useful.”

“You surprise me, Miss Heywood. Surely there is more variety of amusement, company and things to be seen in London which you can know nothing of there.”

“To be sure. Sameness of company and of activity is certainly part of country life. But it does not follow that the pursuit of amusement all day long is what suits my character best.” 

“And here you are in pursuit only of amusement all day long?”

“For the most part, yes. You will think me very serious, but there is no task to be done in the home of dear Lady Susan: there are no garments to be mended, no small children to teach, no tenants to visit and assist, or horses or dogs to be exercised, game to be shot, and indeed no mother to provide a task for me even where an idle hour might be desired!”

Sir John smiled at this picture of domestic felicity and wondered for the first time in a while whether his own time might be better spent attending in person to his own large estate in Hampshire. 

“As to sameness of company,” Charlotte continued “though it is true that our village is small and my mother visits with our neighbours more infrequently than others, mine is a very large family and there is no shortage of observation of human nature to be made within it and among our closest neighbours.” 

“And what of intellectual stimulation Miss Heywood? What of conversation and ideas? Surely these are better found in London rather than the country.”

“I will have done my parents a great disservice indeed, Sir John if I have made Willingden appear a place of intellectual poverty!” She said with a glint of amusement in her eye. 

“My parents may live a quiet life but we had our fair share of governesses and dance masters and were encouraged to have a curiosity about the world. And though he is a retired country gentleman, my father’s library is the work of generations and is very good; there is no shortage of opportunity to read and to learn for those who wish it.”

She continued with a touch of sardonic humour.  
“I have already determined that the season in London will be my period of Otium, but I will return to my parents’ home in the spring ready to be useful and active again: ‘happy is the man, who after the ancient race of mortals, cultivates his paternal lands with his own oxen’ after all!”

Sir John was greatly surprised by this. Charlotte’s intelligence and information was unusual and Sir John could not hide his admiration.  
“Upon my word I must confess myself astonished, Miss Heywood! A young lady from Willingden who is a toiler and a student of Horace!”

Remembering Mrs Campion’s quip at her expense during the Sanditon regatta last summer, Charlotte hesitated in her reply. She could not be sure that he was not teasing and was afraid of a rebuke. 

“You have already lured me into ingratitude to Lady Susan by admitting that I prefer the country to the hurly burly of town, sir! Now I have fallen into the trap, and not for the first time, of giving my opinions too freely! In future I will be more circumspect and remain safely on the side of expectations: I will speak only of my sampler and my piano or of Udolpho and the Mysteries of the Forest.” She said with a smile

“I beg you will not.” He replied earnestly.

Lady Susan soon called Charlotte to her and the two ladies took their leave of the assembled company. The remainder of Sir John’s evening, however, was very dull indeed and more than once he found himself wondering about this girl who seemed immune to the more superficial constraints of social nicety and of conversation. Who had read and understood Horace’s Epodes. Who despite her retired upbringing, spoke with intelligence, eloquence, and natural wit on such subjects that were not the usual domain even of the most sparkling young ladies he had known. One conversation with Charlotte had left him bewitched, and he was eager to see her again. 

The month that followed the gathering at St James’s Square provided many opportunities for Sir John to improve his acquaintance with Miss Heywood. He had proven himself a balm to her anxiety about appearing in London society. He smoothed over awkwardness in conversation with new acquaintance and explained the motivations and relationships between many of the people in her new circle; he found humour in the excessive and useless displays of magnificence she encountered; and he sheltered her from knowledge or notice of society’s more insalubrious side. All in all, he did everything and more that his cousin had asked of him, and Charlotte often found herself cheered to see him make his way towards them in a crowd. Besides Lady Susan, he was her truest friend in the disquieting world of the Ton and she was grateful to him. If Sir John’s feelings were in danger of extending any further she did not think to ask herself, for although Charlotte had become more accustomed to enduring her disappointment with outward equanimity, in private Sidney Parker continued to dominate her thoughts, though she heard little of him in London during her frequent visits with Diana and Arthur and nothing in the letters that arrived from Mary and Georgiana.

Chapter 10

To attend a private concert, supper party, or ball or to meet with Lady Susan’s particular friends in her box at the King’s Theatre and to be seated there, as she was this evening, in a place of honour between Sir John and Lady Susan had become for Charlotte a regular occurrence. And although she had grown more accustomed to it over the past few weeks, she never failed to marvel at the novelty of her circumstances. Each day brought some new experience and each evening a new delight.  
This evening saw them attending the opera, and in the interval Sir John took the trouble to explain the words of a love song to her (P):

Un'aura amorosa  
Del nostro tesoro  
Un dolce ristoro  
Al cor porgerà;

Al cor che, nudrito  
Da speme, da amore,  
Di un'esca migliore  
Bisogno non ha.

A breath of love  
From our treasures  
Will afford our hearts  
Sweet sustenance.

A heart nourished  
On the hope of love  
Has no need  
Of greater inducement. (Cosi Fan Tutte, Mozart) 

Charlotte had never been to the opera before and was delighted by it, but she did not perceive the earnestness with which he undertook this duty of translation. Thanking him for explaining it, she turned her attention back to the stage, and he wondered at how unassuming she was not to think of or notice his growing attentions. It made him want to draw her gaze to him again, but he knew instinctively that he must tread carefully if he was to win her. From a young age Sir John’s wealth and consequence had attracted many an ambitious mother, and his handsome face and easy manner had turned the head of more than one young lady seeking an important conquest. He had thus learnt his power early and had developed a cautious nature, endeavouring at all costs to remain free of any awkward entanglements. At the start of his acquaintance with Charlotte Heywood he had no intentions beyond a season’s mild flirtation, but now he perceived that he had been completely conquered in the space of a few short weeks. He had never seen a woman like her and never felt himself so desirous to please.

After the theatre Sir John joined the ladies in their carriage to attend them to a late party of supper and cards.

“And what have you say about Mr Mozart’s opera Miss Heywood? My cousin has seen it before, of course, but this is your first viewing of the opera buffa. Was it to your taste? I know you will have an opinion worth hearing.”

“I enjoyed it in many respects, Sir John. The music was wonderful indeed! And it was very amusing, but…” 

Sir John and Lady Susan encouraged her to continue 

“Well… though I laughed at the absurdity of it all, I could not help but wonder at the improper understanding of such characters and situations, who are rewarded in the end for behaviour that is so very deceiving and frivolous. If we are to understand and strive toward authenticity should we not examine those that are good by nature rather than those who are depraved and deceitful? Forgive me. You must think me very serious and provincial, but honour without virtue, reason without wisdom, pleasure without happiness – what good can there be in encouraging that? And then the declaration of female inconstancy, even in the title! – it will not do, it is not just!” 

From another lady this speech might have seemed prudish and affected, but Charlotte was an unusual mixture of unaffected sweetness, energy, and striving intelligence that she charmed her listeners without ever seeking to.

“You are full of surprises Miss Heywood! I perceive you have read Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality.” He gave her an admiring glance which was not lost on Lady Susan. “But pray, do you mean to suggest that you do not find it in woman’s nature to be inconstant and to forget those they do love or have loved? Is it not men who are always the sufferers in matters of the heart? They undertake all the worries and all of the burden of responsibility in winning favour. Do not all the great works of literature attest to it?”(P)

“Do not teaze, John.” Said Lady Susan gently, feeling the conversation was becoming dangerous. “Miss Heywood is not used to your jests. As you well know, the pen has always been in the hands of men. I will not allow books to prove anything in the matter.”(P)

“Aye, sir,” said Charlotte suddenly, “I admit that men have many difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You are forced on exertion and responsibility, but you always have a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other to take you back into the world, and continual occupation and change soon lessen your grief or disappointment. Neither time, nor health, nor life to be called your own – yes, your burdens are great indeed. But we have no such distractions. We live quiet, confined and our feelings prey upon us.”(P)

Here Charlotte’s voice fell imperceptibly and she turned to the window. Lady Susan called Sir John’s attention away with another topic of conversation, but he was left with the feeling of having stumbled onto some locked door in Charlotte’s heart. 

Upon reaching their destination, Sir John helped the ladies from the carriage and accompanied them into a brightly lit drawing room at a fashionable address near to Carlton House. The rooms were crowded and hot as they always were at such gatherings and Charlotte found herself once again wishing that she were back in her chamber and alone with her thoughts. Their party was numerous and the clamour in the room as Lady Susan’s circle reassembled, made any real conversation impossible. Despite attempts to draw her again into private discussion, Sir John found that he could no longer command her smiles; his witticisms now elicited from her only distracted commonplaces and his attentions were soon drawn by another member of their party. For a few moments, every effect of solitude for Charlotte was produced and her mind was full of Sidney and his wedding in May. 

From this reverie she was roused by the sound of a familiar voice calling her name and a touch on her arm. She turned, and came face to face with Lady Babington lately returned from her tour of the continent. Great was their joy at seeing one another and Charlotte’s delight was compounded by observing in Esther the clearest evidence of marital contentment and happiness. The marriage of Esther Denham and her removal from all the evils of such a home as Denham Place and her dissolute and amoral brother, to the home of her choice and the man of her choice was an event which gave general satisfaction among all her acquaintance. And never had Lady Denham loved her niece so well as when she first hailed her “Your Ladyship”. (NA)

The two ladies drew apart from the crowd to a bench where they could converse unmolested. They spoke of Venice, Rome, and Naples where the Babingtons had been travelling over the seven months that had passed since their wedding and from whence they had recently returned.

“Well Charlotte. You look very well – extremely well if I may say so. London appears to suit you!”

“It is all Lady Susan’s doing – a new dress and hair style has transformed me, at least for the time being, into a different person, but I will return to Willingden at the beginning of May and I confess that at times I look forward to it as a relief.”

“I perceive you are very much as you ever were underneath it all,” said Esther with a smile. “It grieves me that there was little opportunity to visit with each other last summer before we left for the continent – your spirits seemed dampened at that time, perhaps you were dreading your departure from Sanditon at the end of summer?”

“No indeed. I was happy to return to my family.”

Esther frowned slightly at the assumption of unconcern on her friend’s face, and observed her with characteristic perspicacity.

“That gentleman,” nodding at Sir John, “seems to show you much attention.”

“Sir John Fairfax? Yes, he is Lady Susan’s cousin and she has asked him to watch over me during my stay. He has been a very kind friend to me.”

“Has he indeed?” said Esther archly. “You may be interested to know that my aunt writes that all is well with our friends in Sanditon. The rebuilding is near complete and now we can only hope that Mr Tom Parker will be able to control his monomaniacal whims since Mr Sidney has taken control of the business. Mr Sidney Parker has much to contend with I imagine, and I hear that he is not as well as he should be.”

“Is Mr Sidney Parker unwell?” cried Charlotte anxiously.

“No indeed, my dear. I do not think there are any serious concerns about his health! Simply, that my aunt mentions he appears somewhat depressed in spirits and very unlike what she would expect in an engaged man. He is rarely in London with Mrs Campion for instance.”

“I imagine that he has much to concern himself with in Sanditon and many demands on his time,” said Charlotte blandly.

“I do not imagine that Mrs Campion will want to live in Sanditon once they are married! I hear there has been no cessation of her social engagements – I believe she is here this evening.” 

Charlotte looked about in alarm, but caught sight only of Lord Babington who was approaching. She forgot all about Mrs Campion for a moment in her joy at seeing him in such excellent spirits. In seeing Babington her thoughts naturally flew to Sidney, and oh how ardently did she wish to know something of how he fared. Esther’s words had filled her with anxiety on account of his health, but she dared not ask. 

The three had hardly begun to trade pleasantries when a murmur passed through the assembled throng giving way to a hush. Lady Susan appeared by Charlotte’s side and taking her arm, whispered in her ear. “Have courage my dear Charlotte. His Royal Highness is here. He will certainly speak to us.” Charlotte was struck with a sudden terror. She had heard rumours that Lady Susan was well acquainted with the Prince Regent and that Lord Babington too was a friend, but these had all seemed distant fairytales until this very moment when the Prince paused before her party to greet Lady Susan and Lord and Lady Babington, and exchange words. The Prince was tall but fat, with a red face and an extravagant sweep of hair. He was far closer in reality to his caricature in the broadsheets than his portraits. He spared a significant greeting and smile for Lady Susan before dropping his glance on Charlotte who was indeed looking very well. “And who is this fine-looking young lady?” he asked, peering down at her.

“May I present, Miss Charlotte Heywood, your Royal Highness.” Charlotte dropped a low curtsey and lowered her eyes modestly before his gaze. “Miss Heywood spent last summer in Sanditon, where she made the acquaintance of Lord and Lady Babington.” 

“Hmm. very pretty, very fresh. AH, yes. Sanditon! I have heard Babington speak of the place. A fishing village? It’s no Brighton eh, Babbers? I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again very soon Lady Susan. Goodbye Lady Babington. The gaming tables call I think!” The prince swept off leaving Charlotte greatly shaken by the experience. What would Alison say!

It seemed as though this evening was destined to be one of uncomfortable surprises, for just as Charlotte was beginning to feel herself again, she heard her name spoken by Mrs Campion who, detaching herself from her large party of friends moved toward Charlotte just at a moment when Lady Susan was drawn away.

"Miss Heywood! I confess I am surprised to see you in such company,” she said. “I had thought that you were safely returned to your parents’ home.” 

Charlotte curtseyed politely and said simply,

“I am Lady Susan’s guest for the season, Mrs Campion.” 

“Sampling the delights of town and planning to make a good match perhaps?”

“Indeed not, Mrs Campion. I am content merely to visit with Lady Susan, but I shall be home again in May, and as it will be a busy time on the home farm, I expect that I shall be needed there.”

“I am sure you shall. What a shame that you will not be here to attend my wedding to Mr Parker. But you will read of it in the paper I suppose.” 

It was a very awkward moment and Charlotte’s countenance showed that it was so, but Mrs Campion’s nature was not one inclined to kindness where a perceived victory was at stake. Her aim was no less than to vanquish this young woman who had the temerity to present herself with quiet self-possession. But Charlotte would not quail before an enemy.

“Is Mr Parker in London, Mrs Campion? You must have a great many things to discuss in preparation for your marriage.” Charlotte heard herself asking. 

“He is engaged in his business affairs in Sanditon at the moment.” Eliza replied coldly.

“But what is that, when there are such friends to be met here and important decisions to take?” 

Mrs Campion swiftly took her revenge and replied, her sharp eyes full of meaning.

“Perhaps, Miss Heywood, you think gentlemen never stand upon engagements, if they have no mind to keep them, little as well as great.” (S&S)

This was a cruel blow. But despite paling slightly, Charlotte’s self-command did not desert her and she merely nodded, for she did not think this deserved the compliment of a response lest they provoke each other further to an unsuitable increase of unreserve.(S&S) 

Charlotte considered with great sorrow Sidney’s situation. If he had injured her, how much more had he injured himself; if her case were pitiable, his was hopeless. His engagement had made her miserable, but it seemed to have deprived him of all chance of ever being otherwise. She might in time regain tranquillity; but he, what had he to look forward to with such a woman? Could he ever be tolerably happy with Eliza Campion; could he, were his affection for herself out of the question, with his integrity, his sensibility, and his well-informed mind be satisfied with a wife like her – artful, jealous, and selfish? His youthful infatuation of eighteen would have naturally blinded him to everything but her beauty and wit; but the ten interceding years must have opened his eyes to her defects. (S&S) His domestic comfort was far from certain and she saw that for a man such as him whose heart and loyalty could only be commanded by the strongest feelings of love and compatibility, a home with Mrs Campion would soon become unbearable. She feared for him, and for his future honour.

Charlotte was wishing more than anything that she could escape when Sir John hurried to her rescue. Bowing before the ladies and making some slight excuse to call Charlotte away, he succeeded in swiftly bringing her to Lady Susan, and before long the ladies said their adieus to their hosts and to Lord and Lady Babington and found themselves in the carriage heading home.

Chapter 11

In fact, Sidney Parker had arrived in London that evening. Firm in his sense of duty to Mrs Campion, he sent word immediately of his arrival, although he had not come to give his opinion, which in any case he was certain was not wanted, on furnishings, wallpapers, linens and tea services, nor to hear of how plans for his wedding progressed. No, his aim was to discover, discreetly if he could, how Mr Otis Molyneux did, and in detecting if the welcome change he had heard rumour of was true, to find out if he could be the means of assisting him any further. 

Eschewing Brook’s and the temptations of the card tables and raucous company he knew would be found there with Crowe and others of his acquaintance, Sidney chose instead to lodge with his brother and sister at Bedford Square. He arrived to find that they had retired early for reasons of indisposition and not wishing to disturb the servants at that hour he made his way to Cheapside directly where he lost no time in making inquiries over a pint of porter and a meal in a local chop house. He was told that Mr Molyneux was to be found on this evening at the Quaker meeting house on Gracechurch Street where the Sons of Africa often met. His inquiries also revealed that Mr Molyneux had quit the gambling tables entirely and was considered a respectable gentleman in the neighbourhood where he was achieving tolerable success as a wine and spirits merchant and brewer. He had also become prominent in the Sons of Africa for petitioning parliament to end the slave trade and abolish slavery; his letters had been published in the London newspapers and his lectures were very well attended, for he was a gifted speaker. 

Sidney soon had the opportunity to discover for himself what there was of truth in these reports when he found himself seated at the back of the meeting hall. Otis was an exceptional orator, passionate but sensible, intelligent but intelligible, and Sidney along with rest of his audience was moved by the full force and moral authority of his words. Afterwards, though evidently very surprised to see him, Otis agreed to join him at a tavern in the neighbourhood and the two men soon found themselves seated in a corner of a respectable establishment where Mr Molyneux was known to the proprietor. 

“Mr Parker”, began Otis rather stiffly. “Allow me to say, that the kindness you did me in paying my debts was one that I did not deserve. I do not think that in my disordered state of mind at the time, I thanked you adequately. I wish to do so now. I shall never forget it. Although I am not yet able to pay you back in full I will be in a fair way to do so by next Michaelmas, as I have given my business much more attention than heretofore.” 

“Yes, well. Thank you, Mr Molyneux. I am very glad to hear that you have found a better path. But in truth I am not here on business, I am here to see how you are faring and to discuss a much more delicate matter – my ward, Miss Lambe.”

Otis started at her name and looked ashamed.

“Do not speak of her, sir. I beg you. I cannot bear to think of what she has endured because of me. I will never forgive myself for it – you were right to separate us. I see that now.” 

“The fact is, Mr Molyneaux, she is unhappy. She has not recovered well from the events of last May and I feel that if I could indirectly relieve her suffering by assisting you in any way, I would be happy to do so.”

Otis’s misery at these words were plain for Sidney to see and once again he was struck at the very deep and true affection that had existed between them. Charlotte had seen it, of course, and though she could not have known of Otis’s gambling debts she had recognized the sincerity of feeling. He felt himself a blockhead indeed for not seeing it earlier himself and for dismissing Otis as a common fortune hunter and thus letting things get so out of hand. His own experience of youthful ardour might have told him that this was not the right way to go about things.

“I know that she can never be more lost to me than she is now – would that I could do anything to take away the stain I have brought upon her!” Otis cried passionately. “I wish more than anything that she will find safety and tranquility and though it hurts me to say it, true affection – she deserves no less. There is nothing further you can do for me sir; I thank you for your offer of assistance. The mistakes I have made, have at least put me on my guard, and all I can do now is to try to make something honourable out of my life so that it will not be that her precious love and trust was wasted – at least it will be something to live for. Whether or not that will give her comfort only you can judge.”

Sidney was touched by these heartfelt words. Although he knew that he had done the right thing to separate Georgiana from Otis, his opinion of the gentleman was softened and he saw here an uncomfortable mirror of his own situation and feelings. Though a heart may be broken, it goes on beating just the same, but what endurance of mind and of temper is needed to prevent oneself from being pulled under by the evil of self-indulgence! Gentlemen had so many more outlets for vice than ladies and their outward expressions of grief often found relief in dark and twisted avenues from which they might never return if they were not on their guard. Sidney had known this all too well in the past and he could even acknowledge that he was in similar danger now, but Otis’s words had reminded him of the dishonour to the ones they loved in taking such a path. The men parted ways with a sincere handshake and with a determination on the one side to find a means of relieving this misery and a conviction on the other that all future happiness was impossible.

Sidney chose to walk back to Bedford Square. It was a fair distance home from Cheapside; London at that hour was dark, and the streets considered unsafe for any but the most intrepid, but he welcomed the solitude and the cool air, for he had much to consider and to plan for.

Chapter 12

Sidney had completed the business that had brought him to town in a matter of days and he planned to return to Sanditon later that afternoon by post chaise. He wrote a note to Mrs Campion informing her that he would take his leave at her townhouse in Berkeley Square before departing for Sanditon. At breakfast he listened patiently as his sister spoke with the greatest animation of a new doctor in Harley Street that she was consulting on account of some imagined ailment suffered by Arthur and herself. Arthur nodded in cheerful agreement at Diana’s detailing of his poor health and applied himself with renewed vigour to his meal. Diana and Arthur also spoke at length of Charlotte and Lady Susan whom they visited regularly. Sidney’s surprise and curiosity to hear of Charlotte’s presence in town was great, and it took no little composure and strength of mind not to question his siblings on the subject more than was proper. In truth, his discretion was not much needed, for Arthur and Diana were florid in their description of their visits with Charlotte both at Bedford and at Hanover Square. Arthur’s lavish praise of the handsomeness of Lady Susan’s house, livery, and table, of Charlotte’s person, behaviour, and dress, and musings on their almost continual attendance by Sir John Fairfax were so minute that Sidney could scarcely determine whether his sensations were of joy or of agony. He was thankfully prevented from making any reply to this onslaught by the doors being thrown open, the servant announcing Mrs Campion, and Eliza immediately walking in.

The greeting between Sidney and Eliza was civil, but there was no mistaking the absence of a lovers’ joy at being reunited. On the lady’s side there was an air of fretful displeasure and more than a little superciliousness towards Arthur and Diana who soon made their apologies and departed on foot for Harley Street. Upon being left alone, the gentleman made every attempt at civility and kindness.

“Sidney,” Eliza said as he rose to greet her, bending over her outstretched hand. “I could not wait for you to attend me this morning, and I took the liberty of coming in person to tell you that there is a party this evening at Mrs Vernon’s that you must attend. They are people of great consequence and have asked after you particularly.”

“My dear Eliza,” he replied as courteously as he could muster, for he felt a dispiriting scene was coming. “I cannot imagine what they might want with me, since I am unknown to them. In any case, am afraid that it will not be possible. It is imperative that I return to Sanditon immediately. I have already been in Town longer than I planned and I must go over the accounts and new plans with Mr Stringer on the morrow. He will be expecting me, and as Tom has sent a note expressing a wish to make important changes to our business concerns I really must be there to attend. I did mention that this was the case. I am very sorry to disappoint you.”

With a frown of displeasure, Eliza replied peevishly “One would think that it is Sanditon you are going to marry in spring, Sidney! Come, I have accepted that you have been absent from London all winter without complaint, but I must insist that you attend me this evening. When we are married you will live in London and give over attending to these business matters in any case. Surely my investment in Sanditon and your brother has bought me that much attention at least! I will brook no disappointment!” 

Sidney was offended by this reference to their agreement, but saw directly that if he persisted in his point there would be no peace. He could no nothing but bow his head in assent. 

The thought of Charlotte’s being present at the party had never occurred to Sidney till, entering the drawing-room with Eliza by his side, he found himself looking in vain for her among the young ladies assembled there. (P&P) Heretofore he had thought only of his disinclination for an evening party and his mortification in having to accommodate Eliza’s desire for display. The desirability of avoiding a vulgar quarrel with Eliza whose impatience and peevishness had increased in the months since their engagement, was great, however, and it furthered his growing suspicion that their marriage would only magnify rather than lessen the ill temper that had begun to reveal itself in her letters and behaviour toward him.

And thus, despite all reservations, Sidney found himself in the Vernon’s over warm and over-lit drawing room, making polite conversation with people he cared little for and hoping against all his better feelings and self-possession that he might be granted a glimpse of Charlotte unobserved. He told himself that he would be satisfied if he could ascertain that she was in good health and spirits. It was not long before he was rewarded in that hope, for in searching for a quiet room from which to escape the throng of guests he found himself in the doorway of a relatively tranquil and softly lit card room and soon perceived her seated beyond Lady Susan’s whist table, engaged in earnest conversation with a gentleman.

He had the advantage of seeing her first and had painful leisure to observe that his brother Arthur had not exaggerated her charms. He had never seen her thus, and though his imagination already held her up a paragon of female perfection and beauty, he could not deny that her quiet elegance and womanly graces had increased beyond all measure in the months since the scene of their final parting on the clifftops above Sanditon. Her dress was almost austere in its absence of fashionable trimming and lace, but it suited her form and figure very well.

His ear caught the conversation of some ladies in the corner nearest him. 

“Sir John does not dislike his cousin’s guest, I fancy?”

“Oh! No, that is clear enough. One can guess what will happen there. He is always with them; half lives at Lady Susan’s, I believe. What a very good-looking man!”

“Yes, and Mrs Beauacre, who dined with him once at the Vernon’s, says he is the most agreeable man she was ever in company with.”

“She is very pretty, I think – Charlotte Heywood. It is not fashionable to say so, but I find her very pretty indeed and grown more so over these months with Lady Susan do not you think? She has become quite a beauty.”

“No fortune though, and I hear she has some very strange ideas. Fancy thinking that a gentlewoman should be occupied with improvements on estates!” 

“The gentleman does not seem to mind her opinions! If she can catch him, Sir John will be a great match for her.” (P)

Their conversation moved onto other topics but these words were as daggers to Sidney who was fixed to the spot, hungrily observing the slope of her neck as she leant forward to hear her interlocutor and the brightness of her eyes and soft redness of her lips as she spoke in eager tones to the gentleman. His jealousy redoubled as that gentleman – whose admiration of her he could plainly see was fair on its way to love – made a rejoinder that turned her serious expression quite suddenly into a smile and laugh. It was in that moment that Charlotte lifted her eyes to meet Sidney’s own. The smiled died on her lips and her face paled, so that Sir John bent toward her with concern. 

“Miss Heywood. What is the matter? You look quite unwell! Can I fetch you something – a glass of wine perhaps?”

Charlotte recalled herself and tearing her eyes with great difficulty from Sidney’s, forced herself with beating heart and shortness of breath, into something like composure. 

“Pray excuse me. It is nothing Sir John.” Sir John’s concern sent him search of wine, however, and Sidney, who was soon alerted to Eliza’s presence by the touch of her hand on his arm, turned to make his excuses before hastily quitting the room by the door to the staircase.

Shocked and discomposed by seeing him again after so long, Charlotte both feared and hoped that they might speak, but she dared not raise her gaze to the entrance until she had regained control of herself. When her courage and a tolerable tranquility returned, she ventured a glance to the place where she had seen him a moment before, but he had gone.

Chapter 13

For some days after the party, Charlotte’s feelings were very confused. Lady Susan’s chair had been to the door and thus Sidney’s entrance had slipped her notice. Charlotte was thus saved the discomfort and embarrassment of having to speak of it to her, but in the privacy of her chamber she went over every detail of the encounter. It had been above seven months since she had seen him last, and her astonishment and embarrassment at finding his serious dark eyes staring down at her from only a short distance away was very great. 

Arthur and Diana had not mentioned that he was expected when last she had visited Bedford Square. But perhaps his visit had been unplanned, for despite Esther’s suggestion that he avoided Town, a notion that had the added attraction of conforming to all of Charlotte’s own wishes, it was after all more natural that he would be eager to see Mrs Campion and to plan for their future together. She noticed that his looks were as handsome as ever, though perhaps a little tired. But his countenance struck her with its guarded, grave, almost indifferent expression and she could not account for his sudden disappearance in any way that gave her pleasure. 

“He saw me, but If he fears me, why did he stay to catch my notice?” she said. “And if he no longer cares for me, why remain silent? He could still be civil to others, why not to me? Why did he not acknowledge me as a friend or an acquaintance at least? I must think no more about him. I must endeavour to forget him as he has most likely forgotten me.” (P&P) She was recalled from these thoughts by the clock’s strike reminding her that she would soon be wanted to attend Lady Susan for a drive in the open carriage. Charlotte had learned to conceal her feelings through practice, and she readied herself to be in company and to come under the observation of Lady Susan’s shrewd eye.

The Sunday afternoon was fine and dry, and the party of ladies were handed into the carriage by Sir John and a friend who had come to accompany them to the Park on horseback. As they drove the air was cool and fresh, and when she closed her eyes and blocked out the noise Charlotte found it almost reminded her of home. Little else of the Park and the company was reminiscent of the silent, rolling hills around Willingden, however, and she felt almost glad that her visit to London would be over soon and that she would be returning home in six weeks’ time.

The spacious gravel walk of Hyde Park was covered with horsemen and carriages and when their party determined to alight from the carriages and walk along the foot-path towards the enclosure near Kensington Gardens, she found it so crowded with well-dressed people passing to and from the gardens that it was almost difficult to proceed. As their party descended to the broad walk at the foot of the basin of the river the crowd lightened and Charlotte soon found herself lagging behind the others with only Sir John for company. The two walked in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Charlotte ventured to say,

“I am sorry sir. I am not very good company today.”

“And pray what is good company for Miss Heywood?”

She smiled,

“Why, that of clever, well-informed, sensible people who have a great deal of conversation and ideas.”

“You are mistaken,” he replied teasingly, “that is not good company, that is the best. Good company requires only birth, education and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and manners are essential; but a little learning will do very well too. Miss Heywood shakes her head. She is not satisfied. She is fastidious. And you have a better right to be fastidious than any other woman I know.” (P)

She observed that Sir John’s tone had turned serious and earnest, and Charlotte had leisure to wonder again that their ideas could differ so greatly on so essential a point. Not for the first time in their acquaintance did she perceive that her friend’s value for rank and connexion was much greater than her own. In this he was so different from herself and from another person. He continued,

“I venture to suggest that Miss Heywood’s company is the best I have known. But in this I am not surprised: I have not had the pleasure of visiting my cousin long without knowing something of Charlotte Heywood; and I do regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general to be aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for modesty to be natural in any other woman.”(P)

Charlotte was embarrassed by such praise.

“I thank you sir. But this is too much of flattery! I do not think you know me that well.”

“On the contrary. I knew you by report before you came to London. I have heard you described at length by Lady Susan: your person, your disposition, your manner they were all described to me. And I feel I know you better now than if I had known you a twelve month.” 

He paused a moment to observe the side of her face before continuing in more serious and quiet tones;

“And if I dared, I would now breathe my sincerest wish that I could spend the rest of my life learning your thoughts, wishes, dreams and that I might be so fortunate as to share in them.”

Sir John’s admission greatly surprised and distressed her, and she bitterly reproached herself that in her eagerness to find a friend in London to whom she could talk freely, she may have inadvertently given him the notion that he could win her affections, which she admitted to herself were still so wholly belonging to another. She suddenly wished him not so near.

“Sir… I cannot… I am very sensible of the honour you do me, but I do not think that… I am suited for marriage.” She blurted out artlessly.

Sir John smiled indulgently.

“What a singular lady you are Miss Heywood! I am not so vain that I would venture to ask for an immediate answer to my proposal. I must leave tomorrow for some weeks to attend to matters on my estate. Perhaps you might give me an answer when I return? You are correct in observing that we have known each other only a short time, I do not wish to press you. But I cannot in honour further conceal the seriousness of my intentions towards you. Let me only say that I believe I could make you very happy.” And seeking to lighten the mood and draw a smile from her again, he added, “and you must not forget all of the labourers’ cottages on my estate that need refurbishing…”

She was grateful for this jest, but even more grateful for Lady Susan’s turning to call to them to join the rest of the party. Charlotte was obliged to hurry towards her friend, but that evening at dinner, Lady Susan asked Charlotte about her cousin’s intentions. She had been long convinced of his meaning to gain Charlotte in time and though she would not speak to Charlotte with half the certainty she felt on the subject, she would venture on little more than gentle hints of what might be hereafter, of the strength of character on his side and the desirableness of the alliance, if his attachment was returned. Charlotte heard her and only smiled and blushed and shook her head. 

“I am not match-maker,” said Lady Susan, “being much too well aware of the uncertainty of all human events and calculations. I only mean that if you should be disposed to accept him, I think there would be every possibility of your being happy together. A most suitable and advantageous connection your parents must certainly consider it – but I think it might also be a very happy one.”(P)

“Sir John is an exceedingly agreeable man, and I think very highly of him,” said Charlotte; “but there are many reasons, Lady Susan, why I believe we should not suit.”

Lady Susan had the delicacy to let this pass, and only said in rejoinder,

“I own that to see you settled with one so eligible, whose heart can be freely given, and whose character I can vouchsafe for, would be the highest gratification for me – to look forward and welcome you to my family and to see you occupying my dear aunt’s place at Fairwood Hall, succeeding to all her rights as well as to all her virtues would give me great delight!” (P)

Charlotte was not so modest nor so insensible as to easily subdue the feelings that Lady Susan’s picture had excited. As they had no fixed engagements that evening, Charlotte’s imagination and her heart were free to contemplate the idea of becoming Lady Fairfax; of having her own home and family; of finding a use for her intelligence and energies by the side of a sensible and kind man. It was not a charm that she could easily resist, knowing that Sidney was not free. Lady Susan said not another word, willing to leave the matter to its own operation; and believing that could Sir John at that moment with propriety have spoken for himself! She believed in short what Charlotte did not believe, for the same image brought Charlotte to composure again. The charm of a home and of ‘Lady Fairfax’ all faded away. She could never accept him, she could not enter into a marriage with any man, no matter how good and kind, without a very strong love and attachment. The thought was abhorrent to her, and her feelings were still averse to any man in that regard save one. (P)  
And as that one would never be free, all thoughts were at present centred entirely on her return to Willingden, on helping her family, and on the improvements and good that she was sure she could effect there. She had begun to believe and accept in earnest that a quiet life, free from the turmoil of society, was to form the centre and the source of her future happiness.

Chapter 14

The reader, I hope, will trust that it is of great importance to our story that we turn our attention once again to the scene of our heroine’s first adventures, even now when her own situation in Town has become so interesting. And so we return to Sanditon and to the friends whom we have left there.

Sidney’s departure for London directly following his exchanges with Tom and Mr Stringer left his brother some days leisure to contemplate Mary’s words without disruption. The brothers Parker could never be long unhappy with one another and had quickly regained a peace that was strengthened by the mutual bonds of affection and respect. Careful observation of his brother had been enough to confirm Mary’s suspicions in Tom’s own mind, however; and Mr Tom Parker’s mortification was very great on perceiving what evil his own extravagance and profligacy had brought upon a most beloved younger brother and most likely also on a young lady who had been a valued guest under his protection. He grew absolutely ashamed of himself. Of neither Sidney nor Charlotte could he think without feeling that he had been blind, selfish, and expedient. Their sacrifice alone had saved him and his family from dishonour and disgrace. 

The happy spirits that had seldom been much depressed before, were now so much affected as to make it almost impossible for him to appear tolerably cheerful, and despite her very great anger with her husband, Mary’s affection and loyalty were such that she could not but feel anxious for him in his current state.

From himself to Sidney, from Sidney to Charlotte, and then to Eliza Campion Tom’s thoughts ran until the full justice of Mary’s charge struck him too forcibly for denial. Sidney was not happy. He had developed and still cherished a very ardent love for Charlotte, that much was clear, and in contemplating a life with Eliza, whom Tom had been predisposed to think his first and most lasting attachment, Sidney’s face had become a mask in which the appearance of tranquility barely concealed, to those who cared to see, a very great regret and despair. Tom’s superior knowledge of his brother’s affectionate nature and his loyal character, his tender remembrance of the boy who had clung to him after the death of their father and looked up to him as a guardian, of the young man who had thrown himself head long into dissolution after the end of the impulsive engagement he had formed with a lady whose ambition had superseded her love, gave Mary’s words even greater weight. 

“How despicably I have acted!” he cried; “I who have prided myself on my affection and care for my brothers and family! I, who have valued in myself openness, decision, and generosity, disdaining the guarded carefulness of my brother as selfishness and vanity and all the while gratifying my own vanity in useless and blamable sanguinity that has cost us all so dear! How humiliating is this discovery! Yet how just a humiliation! I could not have been more wretchedly blind.” (P&P)

Remaining alone in his study for many hours over many days, Tom gave way to every variety of thought on the subject – re-considering events, determining probabilities, and resolving on a course of action that might serve to remedy at least some of the damage that he had done. 

Sidney was returned by eight the next morning to Trafalgar House. The children heard his entrance from above, and Mary went down to greet him. He looked very weary and was evidently suffering under some emotion that he was determined to suppress. And though she knew it must be so, it was terrible to see. She managed to persuade him to stay a while to wash and to take a little coffee and some refreshment before he set off again in pursuit of the business that he had been prevented from completing the day before. 

Sidney found Tom and Mr Stringer together inspecting the building site, and the three men met without awkwardness or rancour, for it was not in their natures or inclination to remember accusations and conversations which were better forgot. The business that brought them together was that of Mr Stringer’s promotion to a position of greater responsibility vis à vis the design and planning of building works in Sanditon, a financial and social elevation that young Stringer greatly deserved but had never dared to look for. His satisfaction with the proposal was plain to see. And though the plan had been Tom’s, Sidney’s approval was required and given immediately and without compunction. Whether Sidney later found a moment to apologize for his earlier behaviour at the Crowne and to suggest that he and Mr Stringer might in future be of one mind when containing some of Tom’s worst extravagances, is not a subject for our conjecture. The change was made, and it was made for the best; and there the business, along with some other tedious particulars we need not concern ourselves with, was completed to the satisfaction of all, perhaps not least to our faithful reader.

Chapter 15

Though Charlotte had lately achieved some new measure of tranquility in determining to return to her affectionate family and home and in planning a future therein, Miss Lambe had no such comfortable recourse and felt her future prospects to be exceedingly bleak, despite her great fortune. Her lively, affectionate heart was no less broken by virtue of having been longer so, and I have no compunction in relating that her thoughts dwelt on Otis Molyneux frequently. 

Though she could not yet fully pardon him for his errors of conduct, she cherished a very tender affection for him despite everything. He had been the first to understand her, the first to care for her, the first to sympathize with her difficult position as an object of fascination and speculation in society. He had given her life context and meaning and was informed enough to explain all the complications and hypocrisies of race and slavery that her parents had tried to hide and shelter her from. Having never fancied herself in love before, her regard had all the warmth of a first attachment, and from her situation and disposition all the greater strength than first attachments often boast; and so fervently did she value the remembrance of his good qualities and prefer him yet to every other man that it took all her good sense to check the indulgence of those regrets which might have been further injurious to her health.(P&P) Having repelled Sidney’s suggestion that she might return to London for the season, she chose instead to remain in self-imposed exile in Sanditon, trying with greater application than she had ever had before to attend to her lessons and improve and steady her mind. 

A fortnight following his return from London, Georgiana was engaged in study with Mrs Griffiths when Sidney was shown in; he took an offered chair with an air of grave determination. Though her greeting was becoming politer, she wondered that he should take the trouble of visiting so often. She could not help but admit that she was grateful to him for taking an interest, however late, in her wellbeing and comfort, for although Mrs Griffiths was a kind and well-meaning woman, her company and that of the Miss Beauforts was unequal to Miss Lambe’s wit and intelligence. Loath though she was to admit it, Sidney’s visits provided a welcome respite from the tedium of her days under Mrs Griffith’s moralising regime. 

Undaunted by her manner of repulsing him in his inquiries after her health, Sidney seemed rather to want to know her state of mind, and his behaviour to her was far gentler and kinder than it had ever been. Her distrust of him lessened before the growing conviction that he cared for her comfort and for her good opinion, and seemed to want to involve her in plans for her own future. She could not account for this change and thought with sadness how differently all might have turned out for her had he shown such kind attention to the frightened and lonely girl who had arrived from Antigua three years before. Mrs Griffiths excused herself and left Georgiana alone with her guardian. He took a chair near to her and in tones of great gentleness began.

“My dear Georgiana, I must introduce a person that I fear will give you pain. How much only you can tell, but it is my duty as your guardian to bring up the subject of Mr Otis Molyneaux.”

Georgian started a little and turning her head to the window frowned.

“What more can be said on the subject? He has lost all claim on my heart and I am not to think of him any further – is that not all?”

“If that is true. Then yes, it must be all. But if your heart is still engaged to him, there may yet be more I can do.”

“I suppose you are to tell me he is to be married.” Georgiana looked up bravely though her face revealed all the pain of entertaining such a possibility. “Or, can it be – is he unwell?!” At this thought, more painful than the last, Georgiana’s words faltered and her eyes filled with unbidden tears.

Sidney was moved by her feelings and, determined to proceed, dared to relieve her on these accounts as quickly as he could.

“No. He is well. I have seen him.”

Georgiana stared in disbelief, and he continued,

“I have seen him and spoken to him; and Georgiana, I must tell you that I believe him much improved. At first, I only made inquiries – I confess that I did not have a high opinion of him and believed him to be an inveterate gambler – but I am surprised to say that I am very encouraged by the change. His business is becoming more successful and his work with the Sons of Africa has given him something important to occupy himself with. In truth, as I know all too well from my own life, I believe his debts were the result of youthful folly; a mistake from which he could not disentangle himself, for I cannot find any evidence that his life was in any other way dissolute. In this I confess he has been far less to blame than myself – however, I determined all of this before ever setting eyes on him, and when I did meet him he impressed me with his delicacy as regards you and his determination to improve his life.” 

Searching her face to see how she took this revelation, Sidney determined to continue.

“I hope it will not anger you if I add that I believe his improvement is in no small part down to his continued affection for you. Though he believes that you are lost to him forever, he has declared a wish that his life in future might never dishonour the regard that you once had for him. I have rarely seen a man so ashamed and remorseful and so determined to make amends without any expectation of return. Miss Heywood was certain that he was a good man who had made one mistake and I have come around to her way of seeing things. His understanding and opinions all please me; he wants nothing but a little more confidence, and that may be taught in time. Pray forgive me if I have been very presuming. What are your feelings on the matter? You are both young and I do not want to give him hope where there is none, but if you are still favourably inclined towards him I will countenance the connection and do everything in my power to protect and assist you both.” 

Georgiana’s emotion was great and more than once as Sidney spoke she passed her hands over her eyes. Another lady in another story might dithered for years over her decision to readmit him to her affections but Georgiana Lambe was not one of these fine ladies who seeks to hide her feelings from those who have her best interests at heart. She gave her guardian to understand her heart, and her happiness was great that neither she nor her lover were so hopeless as to be condemned to perpetual separation for the one terrible mistake that years of future happiness and prosperity might cause to be forgotten. 

“Why would you do this for me?” she asked. Sidney looked grave and replied,

“I know that I have been an unfeeling and disinterested guardian to you Georgiana. I have observed every duty and every requirement in protecting your fortune and reputation but it blinded me to my duty in caring for and protecting your feelings. I have nothing adequate to say in my defence, but I have been shown how unforgivable my behaviour towards you has been, especially considering what I owed to your father while I was in Antigua and what he surely expected of me in selecting me for this duty. If I had not been so determined that you should make a greater match than Mr Molyneaux, as your father wished; if I had cared to look into his character and prospects properly instead of dismissing him and your feelings as wholly unsuitable, we might have found a better way to help Mr Molyneux and avoided all of the pain of last May.”

“Otis must share much of the blame for what happened. As must I,” she said firmly. “We were both naïve and foolish – what happened was not down to you. I will not have you blame yourself. I was angry and headstrong and did not want to hear what anyone had to say on the matter. I even misled dear Charlotte and forced her into chaperoning our clandestine meeting in Sanditon. She knew nothing about it until it was too late and even though she disapproved she refused to leave us unchaperoned because of her promise to you. I know you were angry with her for that.”

The memory of Charlotte’s indignation and his own angry response that day was too much for Sidney at that moment, and he fell silent, wondering at the many early chances they had missed to understand each other better.

“Your reproofs of me – and Miss Heywood’s – have not been wholly unfounded. I deserved much of it. What was Mr Molyneaux guilty of that I have not also been guilty of, and more? I beg you would forgive me for my failings to you. The very least I can do is to help you and Otis to have the happiness that I cannot have myself,” he said. 

Taking his hand and pressing it with the affection of a sister, she replied quietly.

“You must not lose hope of happiness, Sidney.” 

By the Tuesday sennight Otis Molyneux returned to Sanditon to plead his case in person and though he arrived on the mail coach and not as a hero should do in a chaise in four with liveried servants, he was received by his lady with all the appropriate signs of forgiveness and affection. It was not long before their private joy was made public. The negotiation of generous marriage settlements, investments and pin money from the provision of Georgiana’s great fortune was smoothed and expedited on the one side by Otis’s natural modesty and love, and on the other side by Sidney’s business sense and care for the future stability of their fortunes. The banns were to be read immediately and a wedding in Sanditon church was fixed for four weeks’ time in April. 

Sidney’s joy at being the means of bringing Georgiana and Otis together at the ages of 20 and 23 respectively and setting them up in a fair way for a life of felicity and mutual affection was also great. If he saw it as a tonic for his own choices and a salve for his own past missteps, I cannot rightly say. But that his own future might not be so bright as he had for a moment allowed himself to hope was for a while rendered subservient to the satisfaction that he could do for his ward what he could not do for himself.

Chapter 16

Lord and Lady Babington had also lately returned to Sanditon House from London to prepare for Esther’s confinement. Although Esther looked forward to the event with rather desultory interest, she had chosen to return to Sanditon instead of Babington’s estate so that she could be near to the home of her girlhood and the sea when her time came. Babington’s rejoicing at the impending event was unconfined, however, and she was daily amused and touched in observing each new way he sought to further her comfort. She found, somewhat to her surprise, as she was by nature sceptical and prone to cynicism, that her love and respect for her husband grew with each day spent in his company, and she could not imagine what her life might have been without him. Esther was fortunate indeed in her choice of husband, for Lord Babington united good looks, fortune and a noble family with a kindness and generosity of spirit that made him a valuable lover and husband. 

The wet March afternoon found the two seated together on the sofa in the informal chambers which had been fitted up as a sitting room for their private use. This modern arrangement had been overseen by Lord Babington himself and the bright and comfortable room with views to the park had been arranged entirely with Lady Babington’s pleasure in mind. It was into this sitting room that Sidney was ushered by the servant. There he found Babington reading an amusing piece of society gossip in the paper aloud to his wife, who was reclining with her feet across his knees and laughing loudly. So intimate did the scene appear to Sidney that he made to come away again directly, but the two laughed at his embarrassment and Babington bounded up to take him by the arm and draw him to a chair near the fire. 

Sidney bowed to Lady Babington and a “How d’ye do, Parker?” and “Babington, how are you?” succeeded, burying under a calmness the real warmth of friendship that would have led either of them, if requisite, to do everything for the good of the other.(E) Esther begged Sidney’s pardon for remaining as she was on the sofa, and he smiled to see cold Esther Denham that was, in such a state of undisguised contentment as he had never thought possible. 

The afternoon was quiet and conversable. The gentlemen talked of their own concerns and pursuits, but principally of those of Lord Babington whose temper was by much the most communicative, and who was always the great talker. He had generally some point of politics to mention, some curious anecdote to give from their travels in Italy, or some matter of improvement to his estate to consult about, and he inquired in detail about Sidney’s business concerns, the development of Sanditon, and the progress made in rebuilding the terrace. His marriage had made all such local information as Sidney could give of particular interest and his inquiries into the letting of houses, the paving of the promenade, and the success of the library even approached a tone of eagerness.

“Babington, fancies himself a property speculator now,” cried Esther with an amused smile. “Come, I have heard enough of Sanditon’s drains and the merits of stone paving for one afternoon!”

Babington, as always, was happy to oblige his wife and speak on other subjects, and Sidney observed his friend’s very great domestic felicity with something like envy. His regard for Babington was far too great to begrudge him any happiness, but he knew that his own marriage would be very different. Babington, who had seen something of Sidney’s feelings last summer was very surprised indeed at the sudden announcement of his engagement to Eliza Campion. His attention had been diverted by the pace of his wedding by special license, their immediate departure for his estate in the neighbouring county and thereafter on a tour of the continent, which had preventing him from making any inquiries of his friend. Now that he was returned, Babington had leisure to observe with greater care what Francis Crowe had already mentioned – Sidney was not happy. Lord Babington was shocked by the change in his face, which was strikingly to him who had not seen Sidney for over six months. It was not the change of emaciation, but that effect which even young faces will very soon show from the persistent presence of despondency. (MM)

The visit was interrupted by the entrance of Lady Denham who had grown accustomed to sitting in the afternoon with her niece and nephew in their apartments. She greeted Babington and Sidney, and scolded Esther for her undignified posture on the sofa before seating herself grandly before the fire. Her presence threw a chill over the party and there was little to be done but to hear Lady Denham talk, which she did without any intermission until refreshment came, delivering her opinion in so decisive a manner, as to make everything she said incontrovertible. She inquired into the Parkers’ affairs familiarly and minutely, and gave a great deal of advice as to the management of it all. (P&P) 

“You’ve become very like your father, Mr Parker. Very like in person and in character. I believe Sanditon’s affairs will be in safer hands with you than with your brother.” 

Sidney was a little offended at this unflattering mention of Tom, but could do nothing more than bow his head politely at the intended compliment. Lady Denham subsequently asked,

“And what news is there of little Miss Heywood? Esther tells me she saw something of her in London and a great success she has been under Lady Susan’s tutelage from what I hear. Will she return to Sanditon this summer d’ye think or has she become too grand for this place? I always thought her a pretty thing, rather too opinionated for her own good of course, but I confess I find it rather dull visiting Trafalgar House without her there.”

Babington stole a curious glance at Sidney, who seemed to take this mention of Charlotte with tolerable serenity. 

“You will have occasion to see for yourself how she does, Lady Denham. I believe that she will return to attend Miss Lambe at her marriage in three weeks’ time.” He replied. 

“Very good. And what of your own marriage Sir? What, pray, is taking so long? I do not approve of long engagements and yours has been interminable. Have either of you any reason for not going through with it? You are both well of an age and there is no question of fortune to be secured – a London wedding cannot be so elaborate that it requires such a fuss. I do not approve of frippery and finery. A good, simple country wedding is the best foundation for any marriage, and you had best be sure of Mrs Campion’s fortune as soon as you can, Mr Parker. Marry the lady soon, else she may change her mind and withdraw her funds from Sanditon leaving your brother a bankrupt!” 

Esther looked at her aunt in dismay, but no notice was taken by Lady Denham of the awkward silence that followed these words. Babington saw directly that his friend was very angry. And though he strove to smooth over the embarrassed pause in conversation with as much delicacy as he could by introducing other subjects, Sidney soon rose to take his leave. He bowed to the ladies and Babington accompanied him down the stairs, apologizing for Lady Denham as soon as they were out of the room.

Detaining him further in the hallway, however, Babington ventured to ask what he could not in front of the others.

“Parker, I hope you will forgive the presumption, but I must ask you now: What went wrong with Miss Heywood? Did she refuse you?” 

Sidney paused to inspect his hat before answering.

“I did not have a chance to ask her.” He said dully. “There was always something to prevent me: Sir Edward’s appearance and then the calamity of the fire – which changed everything.”

“Forgive me, I do not follow, old fellow. It cannot have changed your affections! The Sidney Parker I saw was a man in love, and I do not recognise him in you now. Something is wrong, my friend, and you must confess all of it to me directly. Pray, what did Lady Denham mean? She appears to think that Mrs Campion is paying to rebuild the terrace? I cannot understand it!”

Sidney determined to confess the full extent of his mortification.

“Tom did not insure the building works,” he said simply. “His debts amounted to near £80,000 and Lady Denham was very rightly furious with him. She had a mind to call in her investment immediately but she was kind enough to allow us a week to find the money. I was desperate to keep him from the debtor’s prison – you know what I owe him beyond the bonds and duty of fraternal affection. I went to every bank in London and humiliated myself before every person I could think of who might be willing to lend the sum – I was refused everywhere. And just as all hope was lost, Eliza sent a note to my club. She had heard that I was looking for investors in Town and she offered to advance the sum. The security she required was marriage. I felt I had no choice but to ask for her hand.”

“Good God!” cried Babington in horror. “Can this be true? But why did you not write to me? Even I cannot spare such an amount, but I can advance something and I am sure that Crowe and our other friends…”

“No, Babington. I thank you but, no. I cannot allow my friends to entangle themselves in this debacle. Sanditon is a concern for the Parkers alone. If it fails, we must fail with it.”

“And what of Miss Heywood? Her disappointment must have been great indeed!”

At this, Sidney’s impassivity gave way and his expression revealed to his friend the very great pain he felt. 

“I will never forgive myself for engaging her affections without asking that question that would have made me the happiest of men. My behaviour towards her has been wrong in the extreme. My excuse is that I loved her, Babington. And I love her still. If she can forgive me and find happiness with someone else I will be more fortunate than I deserve, though I confess I cannot bear the thought of it. There is some small comfort that in not being linked to me she escaped the ruin and infamy that surely would have followed the fire!”

Babington’s face was very grave at these words. He paced the hall for a moment in thought.

“This is a conundrum indeed, Sidney! I cannot think of what is to be done. But for Mrs Campion to suggest such a thing is inconceivable! To be capable of such meanness, her character must be very bad to act with such cruel self-interest.”

“I will not have you think ill of her, Babington. Eliza is not to blame. She has done my family a great service and she is to be my wife. The fault lies with me and I must learn to – if not love her as I once did – then to be satisfied with our arrangement and to endeavour to make her happy.” 

“It is all very noble, but you are wrong Sidney. Can you not see it? I know now that a marriage without esteem, regard – without real affection and love – is a kind of hell. It will destroy you and Mrs Campion both. We must find a solution.”

“My freedom cannot be bought at the expense of my brother and his family, nor of all of the village people who depend on us. No, there is nothing to be done for it. Do not think on it further. I must do as other men do and think what will please the world; I must consider Eliza’s happiness and my family’s concerns and mingle in London society – that is the sort of shell I must creep into and try to keep my soul alive in.”

“Sad, sad words! That is not brave!”

“No, it is not brave,” said Sidney. “But if a man is afraid of creeping paralysis?” Then in another tone, “but you have made a great difference in my courage, old friend. Everything seems more bearable since I have talked to you. (MM) It does me incalculable good to see your happiness. I cannot think of anyone who deserves it more!”

As Lord Babington watched Sidney ride away, he determined to do everything he could to save his friend

Chapter 17

Happy was the day on which Miss Georgiana Lambe married Mr Otis Molyneaux in Sanditon parish. Charlotte attended her friend to church and saw her hand bestowed on Mr Molyneux with so complete a satisfaction that no remembrance of the last year’s events could impair. The wedding was much like other weddings in the joy of the friends of the couple, but Charlotte had the added satisfaction at being once again in Sanditon and in seeing many of her old acquaintance. She had very great pleasure in seeing Lord Babington again and hearing that Esther was lately safely delivered of a daughter. Lady Denham was hardly less delighted than her nephew, and that the child was named Sophia as a mark of respect to her was a double pleasure. She was not yet cured of making impertinent pronouncements, however, but at her time of life a change of character is perhaps beyond all expectation, and it must be observed that Lady Denham was not entirely lacking in perception. 

“Still not married, Miss Heywood? I had predicted that you would be walking down the aisle before long but I see you are taking your time about it as well. You mustn’t wait too long, else you’ll be left on the shelf and your bloom will have gone. Young people these days seem to think they have all the time in the world. Tis true, you have very little fortune, but you are grown uncommon pretty these past months and you must make the best of it – beauty counts for a great deal when catching a rich husband!” 

Charlotte was no less glad to meet with Mr Stringer again and they talked more agreeably of London and architecture; of his new position in Sanditon and of her plans to return to Willingden in three weeks’ time; and of her wish that Stringer might be as kind a friend to her sister Alison this summer as he had been to her in the last. 

Her greatest joy, however, was reserved for her reunion with Tom and Mary Parker. Her affection and gratitude toward them had not abated over the past nine months, but she could not help a rueful smile at Tom Parker’s great disappointment that the Molyneuxs had taken a house in Queen’s Square and determined on making London their residence. His passion for Sanditon was undiminished despite all the troubles it had caused. 

“It is too bad Miss Heywood! I had hoped that Mr and Mrs Molyneux would take one of the new houses in the terrace. They are so very superior to a London square and fitted up in the latest fashion – quite the thing. However, they have promised to return in the summer for some sea-bathing and may yet change their minds!”

Charlotte was not convinced that Georgiana should wish to return often in the future, but she knew there could be no disagreement with Mr Parker on the subject of Sanditon.

“You are looking very well indeed, Miss Heywood, if I may say so. Very well! Dare I suggest that the healthy bloom in your cheek today is surely brought on by the salubrious sea air of Sanditon – how you must miss it!”

She could do naught but agree and it was not so far from the truth. Sanditon had been the scene of her first adventure from home and her first feelings of love. She could not be insensible to its beauties nor could she wish away her memories of it, both happy and painful.

“Indeed, Mr Parker. I am sure there are few places in world to compare with Sanditon for fresh air and sunshine. I shall always be of one mind with you on that subject. I am so glad that my sister Alison will have the opportunity to see it too.”

“Indeed she shall! We do hope you will reconsider and come with your sister at the end of May. We have all been quite bereft without you. I am sure that Sanditon is only about to come into its golden age and I would wish that you, Miss Heywood, as one of its earliest champions will be here to witness it. Indeed, I shall not rest until I am able to bring that about!”

Charlotte could not see what might induce her to return and risk all the pain of meeting with a newly married Sidney and Eliza. No, she must forgo the pleasure and content herself with home concerns. She wished with all her heart that Alison’s adventures in the world and perhaps her first adventures of the heart might prove more fruitful than her own had been.

With Mary, Charlotte continued on very friendly and affectionate terms indeed, and in the children, who loved her nearly as well as their mother, she had a much-needed object of interest, amusement and exertion, for she was acutely aware of the presence of Sidney Parker and Mrs Campion throughout the day. (P)

Charlotte had arrived in Sanditon some days before the wedding with Lady Susan as chaperone, but she had not been in Sidney’s company at all. He had gone to London to escort Mrs Campion from town and had been much occupied since returning with his affairs and with arranging Eliza’s comfort. Lady Susan and Charlotte were invited to breakfast at Trafalgar House and though Sidney and Eliza were pressed to come as well, he had seemed afraid of being in the way.

Charlotte understood it. He wished to avoid seeing her, but she knew that they must meet and wished only to get it over with. And it was soon over. The morning of the wedding, Charlotte and Mary helped Georgiana to prepare. Sidney met them in the drawing room to escort the bride to church. A thousand feelings rushed on Charlotte as their eyes met briefly; a bow, and a curtsey passed; she heard his voice – he talked to Mary, said all that was right; said something to Georgiana, enough to mark an improved understanding between them: the room seemed full – full of persons and voices though there were only four – but a few minutes ended it and they all set off on the short walk to the place where Georgiana Lambe would become Georgiana Molyneux.(P)

“It is over!” Charlotte repeated to herself in nervous gratitude. “The worst is over!” She tried to reason with herself and tried to be feeling less. How absurd to be resuming the agitation of so many months previous and for a man who was to be married to another in little over four weeks. She had thought she had learned to command herself better. (P)

The day passed without much to remark on either side. At the wedding breakfast, Mrs Campion remained on Sidney’s arm and seemed determined to be displeased with everything. Her otherwise beautiful face was strongly marked with pride and ill-nature, and though Charlotte dared not observe him too closely, Sidney’s face seemed to her closer to what it had been on her first acquaintance with him – cold, impassive, reserved. She had no reason to know how often his eye wandered jealously towards her during the day, but Charlotte felt the utter impossibility, from her knowledge of his mind, that he could be unvisited by remembrance any more than herself. They had no conversation together and no intercourse but what the commonest civility required. (P) 

Mr and Mrs Molyneux set off in their chaise for their new home and shortly thereafter Charlotte said her own good-byes and stepped once again into Lady Susan’s carriage. During the journey back to London she had leisure to turn over all of what had happened, and Lady Susan did not force conversation upon her. In another week she would be home in Willingden and occupied with all those homely concerns that she told herself she looked forward to, and two weeks after her departure from Town he would be married to Eliza Campion in St George’s Church.

Once so much to each other! Now nothing! Once there could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers; nay worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement. (P)

Chapter 18

So preoccupied was Charlotte with her own concerns that she failed to notice that those around her had concerns of their own. Indeed, had she chosen to cast a closer eye on her acquaintance in Sanditon she might have noticed that Lady Susan and Lord Babington had much to say to one another and that both in turn had much to say to Tom Parker. The fruit of these conversations was that Tom Parker was to be relieved of his obligation to Mrs Campion and that the satisfaction of releasing the brothers Parkers from this debt to Eliza would belong to a group of friends willing to invest in the future affairs of Sanditon: Lord & Lady Babington, Mr & Mrs Molyneux, Lady Susan, and Francis Crowe had all advanced considerable sums to satisfy Tom’s substantial debt. Tom’s rejoicing at such a pleasing resolution to a matter that his own actions had made necessary was great indeed. To his relief, the burden of resolving the financial entanglement with Mrs Campion had been lifted from his shoulders through the efforts of others. Dissolving Sidney’s engagement would be another matter altogether. Tom knew his brother’s sense of honour and duty better than anyone, and that it would chafe at anything that smacked of duplicity. He hoped against hope that he might have the opportunity to speak privately with Mrs Campion before she returned to London.

Good fortune was smiling upon Tom Parker that day, however, for no sooner had Mary left to pay a visit to Lady Babington than Mrs Campion was announced and swept into the room alone; she had determined to wait at Trafalgar House for Sidney who was engaged in affairs with Mr Stringer and some of the labourers. Her greeting to her future brother was short and curt, for she had no great interest in the Parkers beyond the man who was to be her husband, and no desire to discuss Sanditon which had been nothing more to her than a means to an end. Mrs Campion felt all the power of her situation as primary investor in Tom’s Sanditon schemes, however, and this sense of having the advantage prompted her with animosity to use it.

“I see my money is not yet going to waste. The terrace is completely rebuilt now and Sidney’s presence will no longer be required in Sanditon. I cannot imagine what you would have done without me! I have instructed Sidney that he must be certain to take insurance on the building work this time.”

Overlooking her triumphant and patronising tone, Tom replied graciously,

“Indeed, Mrs Campion. I am in your debt in more ways than one. The service you did me will not soon be forgotten.” 

Mrs Campion did not seem inclined to continue, and so Tom audaciously claimed the opportunity to speak on matters more urgent.

“Mrs Campion, I confess I am glad to have the opportunity to speak with you privately about a matter of some delicacy, if you will hear me.”

She nodded acquiescence, and he continued, 

“I am deeply grateful for the service you have done my family but I now find myself in the very envious position of being able to repay the amount you have advanced – in full. I hope you will allow me to relieve you of this burden, for it has weighed on me for some time and I cannot but feel that it is not right or honourable that you should have taken such a risk entirely with your own private fortune. I insist upon correcting this as soon as possible. I will write to my banker in London tomorrow to arrange your immediate repayment.”

Eliza’s astonishment was great indeed, but not so great that she could not venture a sardonic smile at his fine words.

“I confess I am astonished, sir! You are fortunate indeed to now find that circumstances will not allow your honour to accept my liberality.” 

Tom disregarded the deserved reproach, so determined was he to free his brother from this entanglement. And he found the courage to broach a subject even more important than the other.

“There is another favour that I must ask of you Mrs Campion. One that is of much greater import both for your own happiness and that of my brother: I must ask you to release Sidney from his engagement.”

At this Mrs Campion sank from actual shock onto the sofa. Tom continued boldly,

“Forgive me. It is an indelicate thing to ask of any lady, but I am very anxious for you both. Sidney is miserable. And if I may be so bold, Mrs Campion, I cannot see any evidence that you are less so. I fear that you have entangled yourselves in an engagement of expediency. You know what marriage is: there is something awful in the nearness it brings. And if there is no trust or love or compatibility, it can kill our marriage and then that marriage stays with us like a murder. (MM) You cannot, you must not, commit yourself – and Sidney – to such a thing. You are still young Mrs Campion, you have fortune and you have beauty – with such gifts you cannot fail to have opportunities for real, true and abiding love.”

Eliza passed her hand before her eyes as Tom spoke. She looked up at him, her countenance quite transformed and naked. In a quiet voice of mingled desperation and relief she said quietly

“But It would be a scandal to call it off so soon before the wedding.”

“For a while it will be talked of, but people will soon move on to other gossip. You have already been married and your fortune is independent – your reputation can easily withstand the blow. And what is a few weeks of discomfort to a lifetime of misery? We both know that no good or honour can come of such a match; it is cruel to take advantage of Sidney’s desire to save his family for the sake of appearances. For both your sakes I beg you to reconsider this engagement! The power lies completely with you Mrs Campion; it is not yet too late!”

Eliza seemed to struggle between a desire to free herself from a connection that in her most private moments she admitted had become a burden to her, and the blow to her pride and vanity that the break from Sidney represented.

“You forget Mr Parker, that I have been privy to all the details of this arrangement. Do not deceive yourself as to the part you have played in this. You were willing to let Sidney sacrifice himself when it suited you! Now you have found the money elsewhere, you have no need of me anymore. That is the simple fact.”

Ashamed and chastened, Tom replied simply.

“I cannot deny what you say. But it is the biggest regret of my life. I will never forgive myself if my mistakes are the cause of Sidney’s future unhappiness and yours.”

Their attention was suddenly drawn by the sound of the doorbell. Mrs Campion quickly restored her composure as Sidney’s firm step was heard in the hall and he entered the room. After a few perfunctory comments Tom excused himself and left the two alone, hoping that his boldness had achieved its purpose.

Though content that he had discharged his duty to his ward both in seeing her safely married in a match of affection and protecting her fortune, Sidney was nevertheless relieved that the day was over and that he had been in close proximity to Charlotte with tolerable serenity. He was wearied by the strain of self-command. To be forced to watch the easy and unaffected intercourse that Charlotte allowed herself with so many others but not with him was a source of immeasurable pain and he now wished nothing more than the privacy of his chamber and a glass of good claret. There was business to be done, however, and Mrs Campion to attend to, and in these duties Sidney caught another glimpse of the endless years of obligation without joy, and honour without virtue that lay before him. For a moment his very being revolted at the idea.

He was disturbed from his reverie by Eliza. The softer tones in which she addressed him now were so very different from the sharp and angry voice that she had developed in recent months.

“Sidney, we must speak now before I lose my courage.”

He turned towards her wonderingly.

“I…I believe we must end our engagement.”

Sidney’s shock was beyond all expression. He could not tell whether his feelings were more of joy or terror, and he looked towards her in anxiety.

“What can you be speaking of Eliza? Have I offended you in some way? I cannot account for this.” He said weakly

“I have been selfish. I know I have. I was sure I could recapture the affections that were once mine and that I threw away, to my bitter regret, but you have been selfish too Sidney. Ten years ago, you reproached me for choosing a marriage of fortune over love and now the tables are turned. I thought that we could now meet on an equal footing, but I think we both now perceive that it is impossible. Perhaps you always knew it. We are changed; the affection that we had is gone and in its place is a miserable disunity that can only be worsened by marriage. Do not deny it. I know what marriage is where there is no affection. It is a prison from which the only escape is death or dishonour. I cannot subject myself to another such connection. I will not survive it. Your brother has just now informed me that he can satisfy his debt to me in full; he has new investors and has no need of my fortune, so you can have nothing to reproach me on that score.”

Sidney was sent into turmoil at this. Had Tom found new investors? How could he not have been informed?

“Reproach you! My dear Eliza, the reproach is all reserved for me. What have you said that I can deny? My shame is absolute; you have shown yourself to deserve far better than I can offer.”

“How heavy your eyes are, Sidney”, said Eliza with sudden compassion. “I shall be glad to lift the burden of those eyes from my shoulders.”

There was little more to be said and the two parted on unexpected terms of respect and tenderness, indeed more than had ever existed between them during the ten months of their engagement. But as Sidney handed Mrs Campion into her carriage for her return to London a free woman, she could not resist a parting shot. 

“Good Bye, Sidney. If you mean to offer yourself to little Miss Heywood, you may be too late. The talk of London is that Sir John Fairfax is quite in love with her and that she is about to make a very advantageous match.”

Chapter 18

One day and one night’s travel after his interview with Eliza found Sidney Parker on the doorstep of Lady Susan’s house in Hanover Square. After she left, Sidney had rushed to Tom to have the circumstances confirmed, and the brothers’ private conversation was marked by the earnest apology and regret of the elder and the renewed hope and relief of the younger which made contrition unnecessary.  
One might be tempted to observe how very favoured by fortune was Mr Tom Parker. Everything turned out for his good: He met with a young woman at a watering place, gained her affection and married her; after four healthy children and a good home, he cannot even weary her with his neglect – had he sought the whole world around he would not have found her superior; his own mismanagement of their affairs resulted in a grievous setback, but his younger brother undertook to promote his happiness and in doing so incurred all pain and heartache entirely upon himself; even in this Tom Parker was relieved of all responsibility, for investors chosen from the great and the good of the land have fallen from the sky to invest in his scheme and to make it a success after all; he has only to speak, and his brother is released from the worst kind of entanglement; he has used everybody ill and they are all delighted to forgive him. Yes, Tom Parker is a fortunate man indeed! (E)

Sidney’s relief and joy at his freedom from Mrs Campion was so great and the habit of excusing his brother so entrenched that his forgiveness had been given even before it was sought. His own thoughts were all for Charlotte. Everything he desired was now within his grasp and with characteristic impetuosity he had ridden with barely a moment’s rest to be with her. The servant announced him into Lady Susan’s drawing room where he found the two ladies seated before the fire, one countenance that of elegant serenity and the other pale and questioning. Now that he was here and on the very threshold of the conversation that had haunted his waking dreams, Sidney hesitated. He was overcome with doubts of success. The months that had intervened since his last interview with Charlotte had taught him true humility such as he had never known before. It had taught him the terrible price of his actions and how insufficient had been all his pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased. (P&P) Mrs Campion’s parting words, forgotten until this very minute, were suddenly recalled, and looking at Charlotte whose sudden pallor as he was announced did her beauty no disservice, he could not wonder that a woman so loveable should be loved by another and perhaps also love in return. Charlotte tried to remain calm under the surprise of the visit but found that she was unable to say a word or to acknowledge him beyond the perfunctory greeting. The gentleman looked almost white with agitation, as if fearful of his reception and conscious that he merited no particularly kind one. 

Lady Susan, from force of habit and greater intercourse with the world, found herself very equal to the awkwardness of the situation and her equanimity helped greatly in smoothing over the awful silence that threatened to settle on them after the usual rejoicing over the dryness of the season was at an end. Guided by the politeness that she perceived to be the wishes of her charge, she ventured to ask him about his upcoming wedding.

“Perhaps you do not know.” He replied in a hurried voice. “That is, you may not have yet heard that my engagement to Mrs Campion is at an end.” 

“You are not engaged!” Lady Susan echoed his words with a satisfaction that held not a little tone of triumph. Charlotte was in so great a state of agitation that she could say nothing and could not meet Sidney’s questioning eye, which he turned on her, saying 

“Yes. Forgive me, I do not wish to be indelicate, but Mrs Campion asked me to release her the day before last and I have agreed.”

Poor Charlotte could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed burst into tears and ran upstairs to her chamber. (S&S)

Sidney jumped up and made to go after her, but was restrained by the sound of Lady Susan’s calm and kindly voice behind him.

“Mr Parker. I see what you are feeling and what you are contemplating. May I gently suggest that you be patient with our dear Charlotte? You have given her quite a shock and you must not presume to return so easily to your situation of many months ago.”

Seeing that there were no secrets between Charlotte and her hostess, he replied with no little emotion or directness.

“Lady Susan, I cannot bear it, please tell me plainly. Am I too late? Is she engaged to another?”

Lady Susan merely smiled, and rising she accompanied him to the door.

“This is not the time or place for such discussions Mr Parker. However, we shall be at Mrs Maumsley’s ball tomorrow evening, and we shall expect to see you there.” 

Sidney found himself, he knew not how, being ever so graciously taken leave of and in another moment riding slowly back to Bedford Square to the solace of a warm meal with his brother and sister and the anxiety of another day’s contemplation of how to secure his future happiness.

Chapter 19

Mrs Maumsley’s house was aglow with candles and her ballroom a throng of London’s most fashionable and elegant members of society. Charlotte entered the room on that Thursday evening with feelings quite similar to what had attended her thither almost a year before. She had then been anxious about how to conduct herself at a ball in London but her head was full of Sidney Parker, perhaps more than she had even cared to admit at the time. Though she was now much more at ease in these surroundings, her mind was no less full of the same gentleman and of what had passed the day before. She was grateful for Lady Susan’s silence, and very little passed between them about the matter except for the information that he would be there tonight. 

Charlotte could not have said any longer what her own thoughts were on the subject of Sidney Parker. She felt herself to be more in a muddle than ever. The first emotions of joy and shock had given way to a kind of terror that she could not explain. She had taught herself to accept so very thoroughly that he was lost to her forever and to look forward to a life of tranquility with her family that Sidney’s sudden reappearance had unsettled her in the extreme. There was an honesty to the life she had planned for herself in a place where she knew who she was and what was expected of her, where life moved slowly but was never dull, and where people spoke as they felt and held to their word. 

The past months had taught Charlotte many lessons and some of them not necessarily to her advantage. Though she was still very much the natural and outspoken young woman of last summer, she had been taught an extreme lesson of self-control and self-reliance; she had learnt for the first time to distrust and to worry, to be cautious with her esteem and affections. 

She had not been in the room a minute before she saw Sidney looking earnestly at her. She felt her colour rise and she turned her head shyly away from him, fearful that her heart pounding in her ears could be heard by the room and that her confusion could be seen by everyone. Her anxiety was such that she was almost grateful when Sir John approached her to claim the dance which he had engaged beforehand. He led her down the first dance confidently, relating the details of his time on his estate from whence he had lately returned. Noticing the lady was distracted, Sir John finally commented in a teasing voice,

“You are very dull this evening Miss Heywood. Does something ail you?”

“No indeed sir. But I admit that I am looking forward to returning home the day after next. I believe I miss it more than ever before.”

Sir John’s voice lowered and as the dance was not a lively one and did not require an immediate change in partners, he asked

“And have you considered my proposal any further Miss Heywood? Dare I hope that I might too be so fortunate as to see the sites of Willingden?”

In truth, having decided quite firmly from the first that she could not accept Sir John, Charlotte had all but forgotten his offer, but she was swiftly brought to herself and managed to make her feelings understood in so humble and gentle a way that the gentleman could hardly feel offended. He was disappointed, of course. He had hoped to win this prize to grace his table and his drawing room, but Sir John was not one to indulge a truly deep passion for anyone. Knowing that he would soon find the equilibrium to which he was accustomed and would in time find a suitable lady to become Lady Fairfax, allowed him to accept her refusal and to promise his continued friendship with the grace that became a graceful man.

The dance mercifully ended, and Charlotte had no sooner made her curtsey and considered with some sorrow what must be the end of a pleasant acquaintance, when Sidney presented himself as a partner. 

This was a change indeed from dancing with Sir John and she could not conceal it from herself. Overcome with emotion at being together once again, they spent half the dance in silence. She blushed under his frankly admiring gaze, and he was greatly moved by having her in his arms and looking closely upon the face and person that he had cherished as though in a dream for almost a year: her dark hair and smooth tan skin; the deep rose colour of her simple dress bringing out the blush on her cheek and red of her lips were as fresh clear water to his parched eyes and he felt that his heart might burst from the sight and nearness of her. Charlotte dared not lift her face, but as she felt certain that her emotions were being exposed to the world, she determined to remain calm and ventured to ask politely after his family. Recalling suddenly where he was, Sidney’s responses were likewise short and polite, but she could detect a restlessness and simmering dissatisfaction in him. At the first opportunity in the dance he whispered.

“Charlotte… Miss Heywood. Please be so good as to look at me.”

Her eyes met his own, which were ablaze with undisguised desire and jealousy.

“I must know… in short, it cannot be concealed… I beg you, tell me directly if you are engaged to that gentleman and I will speak no further.”

She paused a moment, a small frown creasing her brow before she said firmly,

“I am not, Mr Parker. And I have no intention of being so to him – or to anyone.”

She saw the confusion this last inflicted and she was sorry for it, but the clarity and certainty she felt last year had now vanished, even though she knew in her heart that she still cared for him above any other man. 

“You must allow me to explain what has happened my dearest Charlotte. You must hear what I have to say. She has released me; she saw that I was miserable and she was no less so. It would have been a match of dishonour.”

Had Sidney thought to consider his words, rather than to allow them to slip unbid from his tongue as a blessed relief for the emotions that had so long been kept in check, he might have better read the warning that was flaring up in his lady’s dark eyes and in the colour that came to her cheeks. As it was, he unwisely continued, dwelling on his agony over the past months, which in spite of all his endeavours had been impossible to conquer, and expressing in every look and word his real security that this suffering would now be rewarded by her acceptance of his hand. (P&P)

A cold indignation descended upon Charlotte and as their dance ended, she curtseyed politely, turned on her heel and walked purposefully away. Sidney’s surprise at her reaction was such that it took him a moment to determine the direction she had taken and to discreetly follow her thither. She had disappeared quickly, but he soon came upon her alone in a small ante-chamber looking out the window to the square below. 

“Wait,wait Charlotte!” he made to turn her towards him, but she spun around angrily, eyes blazing.

“You presume to speak to me in such a way.” She cried. “We have not exchanged one word above ten months beyond the most basic courtesies, and yet with all the presumption of an accepted lover you appear and address me as though you were not an engaged man but two days ago! How can you be so unfeeling? Do you not see that you are not the only one to have suffered?”

“Of course! I mean… I can only assume that…” he cried feebly. Charlotte continued,

“In my heart I acquitted you of all essential misconduct and was sure of you always doing your duty. I told myself again and again that after all that is bewitching in the idea of a single and constant attachment and one’s happiness depending entirely on one particular person, it is not always possible, and I tried to wish you very happy. And now you are free. But what of my reputation? To be addressed so soon after the breaking of your engagement will surely set tongues wagging? And Tom and Mary? What will they do now that your engagement is broken?”

“Tom has found new investors.” He said simply.

“It was so easy after all?” This was a bit beneath Charlotte, and she knew it, but the release of almost a year’s repressed disappointment and sadness had provoked her beyond reason.

Sidney was rather angered by this, and drawing himself up proudly replied,

“Of course not! You know I would have done almost anything to spare you this. I do not exaggerate when I say that my suffering has been unbearable. But if such is your way of thinking. If the loss of what is most valued is so easily to be made up by resolution, then your self-command is perhaps a little less to be wondered at.”(S&S)

“I understand you – you do not suppose that I ever felt much. A man’s suffering is always unbearable, but a woman’s must be borne! For ten months, Mr Parker, I have had this hanging on my mind, knowing that were it to be known, my family would be made most unhappy, not least of all with you and with Tom and Mary. I have had to meet with Mrs Campion in society and to hear her hopes and her exultation over me with complacency. I have known myself divided from you forever and have learned to hide my feelings, to feign interest in other concerns, and to make new friends. I have taught myself to spare others the pain of seeing what I feel, all the while knowing that my disappointment was not provoked by my own imprudence. The composure of mind that you so disdain did not spring up of itself, it has been the effect of constant and painful exertion! And I have done it because I knew it was right! Because I knew that many other lives would be spared sorrow because of this sacrifice and because of my self-control. Without that conviction, Mr Parker, I assure you that I could have produced evidence enough of a broken heart even for you!” (S&S)

Sidney was quite chastened by these passionate words. He wanted more than anything to hold her to his breast and tell her she belonged to him, that nothing could ever separate them again; perhaps if he had done so immediately he might have won his point. But before he could act, she arrested his impulse by saying in a sad tone.

“I envy your ability to sweep the past away, but I cannot in the space of one day unlearn the lessons of prudence and despair that have been forced upon me. I do not know anymore what to think or how to feel.” 

“It’s not like that, Charlotte! You know that’s not how it is. I was afraid to lose you again. I care for no one but you, think and dream and plan for no one but you.”

Charlotte softened at this. She looked for a moment like she might weep, but with a shake of her head replied with a voice perilously close to a sob,

“I have been in London four months, but despite my appearance, I am not a fashionable London lady. My heart has not been prepared for… it is not accustomed to these slings and arrows; I find that I am longing for home. Willingden may not be exciting, but it is where I am my truest self, where I know what I feel and how to act rightly. Perhaps fate has been kind to us after all, Mr Parker, perhaps it has taught us both a lesson about compatibility.”

“God God! Don’t say that Charlotte!” Sidney cried in anguish. 

“I don’t think badly of you. And I believe I shall never stop caring for you. Sorrow comes in so many ways. I had no notion of that before – I mean of the unexpected way in which trouble comes and makes us frightened and uncertain. I used to despise women for not shaping their lives more, and doing better things. I must return home before I can think of anything else.” (MM)

Sidney was forced into silence by this speech. And his sorrow was great in perceiving that the wheel of fortune that had brought this woman to his family and had thrown her in his path, opening an unlooked for door of happiness into his own dark life, had only served to chasten her trust in the world. 

Charlotte left him directly to find Lady Susan, and when he re-entered the ballroom he saw the two ladies leaving the place together. 

Chapter 20

Arthur Parker found his brother Sidney in the drawing room at Bedford Square late that evening bereft and dejected. 

“Ah just the man I was looking for,” said Arthur as he entered the room and stood against the fireplace. 

“Is it true what I have just heard this evening at the club, that your engagement with Mrs Campion is at an end?”

“I am sorry that you heard it at the whist table, brother. I should have mentioned it to you and Diana, but I was…preoccupied. Rest assured that Tom and Mary are safe; new investors for Sanditon have been found.”

“Tis’ no matter. I am not offended. I left and came home directly I heard. In truth, I never liked the idea of your shackling yourself to Mrs Campion for a lifetime of peevish words and vulgar petty squabbles. You have always been too accustomed to fixing problems for Tom, Sidney. I gather your business in London has to do with Miss Heywood?”

Sidney stared. His brother’s faculties of perception were sometimes surprising to them all, but that he could have known of his feelings for Charlotte was nonetheless a great surprise to him.

“How could you know that?” he cried wonderingly.

“Ah, you didn’t mean me to know it. Forgive me. I had only observed that you seemed to be a fair way in love with her last year, but as you engaged yourself to Mrs Campion I assumed that you either had not made your feelings known or had not been accepted.”

Sidney could not contain himself any longer. He covered his face with his hands and laid his situation before his younger brother without pretense.

“I have made of mess of everything Arthur! I did love Miss Heywood and I have never ceased to love her. I made my feelings known to her last summer but the fire destroyed all my hopes of happiness. I was forced to put her aside and engage myself to Eliza for Tom and Mary’s sake. And now I am free, but she will not have me! My actions have damaged her trusting, innocent nature; she does not deny that she cares for me still, but she is afraid to love me, to marry me. And why should she not be, everything I touch turns to ashes! I do not deserve happiness. It is hopeless.”

Arthur put a comforting hand on his brother’s shoulder and took the chair beside him.

“Nothing is hopeless, my dear brother, least of all you! I know few whose heart is so generous and true. You are impetuous and headstrong is all; you always have been! You forget that Miss Heywood has had much more at stake and she has spent many months learning to contain and control her own feelings. She cannot simply throw that aside because you have galloped back into town. Two days ago, you were to be married to someone else as far as she knew. And beyond last summer what does she know of you really? What does she know of your past, or of the circumstances that have brought you back to her? No more than I do! For Sidney, you must own that you have always held yourself apart from those who love you best. You have never let any one of us into your confidence. If you want to earn Miss Heywood’s trust you must show that you too can trust. I can see plainly that you have ridden to London on an impulse, eager to repair the wrong that was done, eager to reclaim what was once given freely, but it will not do – can you not see it? Think back to your own feelings after your first disappointment in love: such things take time and delicacy to repair; we have all been changed by what happened and Miss Heywood perhaps most of all. What is that saying: ‘one can never step into the same river twice, for one is not the same man and it is not the same river’? I remember it from my days in the school room; Mr Watson said it was a reminder that permanence is an illusion; we must embrace change and trust in it.”

“You are a philosopher, brother”, said Sidney smiling despite himself and remembering his last discussion of Heraclitus. 

Arthur chuckled and poured himself a generous glass of claret.

“Have patience, be gentle, and do not give up so easily, Sidney. I believe you shall prevail in the end.” 

His brother’s words allowed Sidney to hope again, and after some thought he sat down to write a letter. It had been impetuous and selfish to impose himself upon Charlotte so suddenly. The force of his ardour and the release of his emotion had sent him to London without thought or consideration of her feelings or reputation. He abused himself as a blockhead, but determined not to give up hope of winning her trust back with time and patience.

Sidney presented himself at Hanover Square the next day. Charlotte’s departure was fixed for the morrow and his aim was not to request an interview with her but to speak privately with Lady Susan and to ask her to give Charlotte his letter. He was by no means certain that Lady Susan would allow such an imposition on her charge, but he felt instinctively that he would be able to reassure her that he did not seek to cause further distress. After some consideration and his verbal assurance that the letter contained no declarations but was simply an explanation of the events that led up to his broken engagement, she was convinced.

The next morning Charlotte set off for home in Lady Susan’s carriage shortly after an early breakfast, and the two friends parted with deep mutual affection and gratitude. As Charlotte stepped into the carriage, Lady Susan produced Sidney’s letter, and pressing it into her hand with a reassuring smile gave the command to drive on.

With the strongest curiosity, Charlotte opened it and perceived an envelope containing two sheets of letter-paper written quite through in a very close, bold hand. The envelope itself was likewise full. As the carriage made its way through the streets of London to the city’s outskirts, she began. It was dated from Bedford Square on 1st of May, and was as follows (P&P): 

Miss Heywood,

Please pardon me for the freedom I have taken in writing to you. Rest assured I will not seek to importune you here with my feelings. I have promised Lady Susan that this letter will contain no such renewals. I write merely with the wish of providing an account of the events during the months since last summer in Sanditon. Whichever version is traded in London gossip hence, I wish you to know my own. You deserve this much at least. 

To properly explain myself, I must first lay before you a brief history of my family and my own life. I have no intention of paining you, but however difficult, I must be allowed to relate these details to you with the greatest possible candour. 

I have pleasant but vague memories of my mother, as she died shortly after Arthur’s birth when I was a young child, but my own beloved father, one of the very best of men, died when I was ten-years old. His death was a long and painful one, and we all suffered greatly to watch him slowly taken from us. As you know, he left behind my mother’s fortune, the house in town, and an estate with a comfortable income in the neighbourhood of Sanditon. Tom, of course, inherited both the Bedford Square house and the estate, but although he still receives an income from the latter, he has long since let Whytcliffe and has settled much more happily at Trafalgar House with his family. I still retain a great affection for the old place, which was the site of many happy childhood memories, and for a brief moment I even dreamed of living there myself. 

Our mother’s fortune was settled on Arthur and Diana through marriage settlements. And my own independence was secured by early inheritance from a childless uncle, my godfather. After our father’s death, I returned to school at Westminister, and Arthur and Diana, due to their delicate health, were sent to the house of a respectable school master and his wife in Weymouth. Thereafter, my sister and Arthur set up house together, and Diana has managed their affairs since. Although I greatly wished to leave school, Tom insisted that I stay on, hoping that I would make the sort of connections that would help him with his growing business concerns. He was always a kind brother, and as a guardian I Iooked up to and respected him, but during my youth he was much distracted with Sanditon and with Mary, with whom he had formed an attachment during a season at Weymouth shortly after our father’s death. At first, I was lonely at school, prone to fighting, and often missed my home and family, but I eventually settled and made friends with George Babington and Francis Crowe – who were loyal and faithful companions throughout this time and later at Oxford. Babington’s friendship in particular has been unstinting. Indeed, there have been times when I could not have survived without him.

It is through these connections that I met Miss Eliza Stowe at a ball in London when we were both eighteen. She was beautiful and lively and had a fortune of £30,000. I do not wish to diminish my feelings for her which were strong in the extreme, but I can now see that it was also the first, very natural, heart stirrings of a naïve young man, who had read much, experienced little, and was moreover seeking excitement. I believed she returned my feelings and after a few weeks acquaintance she accepted my impulsive proposal of marriage. Perhaps it was unfair of me to propose, for I knew I would not be able to marry her until I came of age and into my fortune, but I was overjoyed by her acceptance; within three weeks, however, she had thrown me over for Mr Campion, who was twenty years our senior. She did not love him, but he had a fortune of £12,000 a year and great estates besides. While I do believe that her attachment to me was true enough, I cannot dismiss the fact that she was secretly allowing the attentions of another gentleman during our betrothal. She was young and moved in a circle where improving one’s wealth and status were infinitely more important than affection and honour. That is all I can say in her defence. I now think I had my first lucky escape, but at the time and for years afterwards I was devastated and yearned for her. I will not trouble you with the details of the downward spiral that followed. Suffice to say that I have much to be ashamed of from that time, and were it not for the efforts of Tom, Babington, and Crowe, I doubt that I would be here to tell you of it. 

When I came of age, I determined to leave for Antigua where, again with the utmost naiveté, I thought I could easily double my fortune in the sugar trade, leave my pain behind, and have a bit of adventure too. I could not have been more wrong in this instance. It is impossible to adequately describe the beauties of that place. The suffocating heat, the extraordinary landscape and sea, the strange sounds and smells, were a heady assault on the senses, you cannot imagine anything more intoxicating.  
But then there was the horror of the trade.  
I don’t know what I expected it to be, but any illusions I had about slavery were shattered on the very first day I set foot on the island. Miss Heywood, my shame in this regard eclipses every other shame in my life, and yet it is a drop in the ocean compared to the suffering of the slaves that I saw in Antigua then, or the suffering of those that are still there and elsewhere right now, at this very moment. We are all so very culpable in this continuing atrocity. 

I was not prepared in any way for this new world and very quickly fell back into behaviour that I would now wish to forget. Though not as licentious as I had been in London, I nonetheless speculated irresponsibly with my business concerns and, I must be open with you, I gambled in excess, I drank to oblivion, and I fought for money. Forgive me, I have no wish to distress or shock you in relating this, but the unvarnished truth is what I promised in taking the liberty to write. Once again, I was saved from myself through the benevolence of friends. A business associate, Mr Lambe, Georgiana’s father, found me dissolute and dying of fever in my rooms, and he brought me to his house where his wife nursed me back to health with the utmost care and kindness. Mr and Mrs Lambe, who was a free woman, had one young daughter, Georgiana. I saw something of my younger self in her melancholy, and in her romantic, impulsive nature, but she was a very happy and charming girl and the apple of her father's eye. The Lambes helped me to get back on my feet, to extricate myself fully from the sugar trade as they had done themselves, and ultimately to find my way home again with my affairs in order. I do not overstate the case when I say that they saved my life, and I will never forget their kindness. A few years ago, only a few months after the death of his wife, Mr Lambe died and left his daughter and her fortune to my guardianship. She was sent to England with her maid at the age of seventeen to complete her education and to make an advantageous marriage. I could not refuse my old friend’s dying wish.

You know all too well my history as Georgiana’s guardian. I have fallen far short of what I should have been to her, I cannot deny. A spirited young lady, was, I admit, a nuisance and impediment to my life at the time. I have no excuse to offer for my failures other than that I did not know what to do for her. I did not know what a young girl who had lost her parents, was taken from her home, and was alone and a source of fascination in a foreign land might require. I should have looked to my own life for the answers, but I did not think to look there, and I was perhaps afeard to look until you brought me back to myself, Miss Heywood. I will not retread my mistaken paths here, no one knows them better than you, but rest assured that I have taken all of your remonstrations to heart, and I hope I have acquitted myself in your eyes and in Georgiana’s in this regard. 

I heard little of Mrs Campion after my return to England, and I truly hoped I would never see her again. I believe she spent much of her time at her husband's estates in Ireland. My hurt and anger gave way to disdain, and when I heard last year that she had been widowed my utter indifference seemed to indicate that I had left the foolish boy who loved her completely behind. Nevertheless, she had been my only experience of love and it had been so painfully hard to recover from that first disappointment. I fear I became quite an insensible brute in the years that followed in order to forget her. And in time it became a kind of habit with me. I did not know I could be otherwise until last summer when I could not escape the sensation that I was slowly coming alive again, despite my best efforts it must be said. By the time Mrs Campion appeared at Mrs M’s ball, I was suddenly feeling truly myself, a person so long a stranger to me and to everyone else that I thought I must be unrecognizable. I was happy for the first time in many, many years. Fool that I was, I believed for a day or two, that it must have been her reappearance that had effected the change, despite the confounding recognition that in her presence I felt strangely cold. It was at the regatta, rowing on the river, with you, when I realized all at once that it was something and someone else. And when you misunderstood my clumsy comment in the refreshments tent, I felt that I might lose something indescribably precious and essential. If you are reading this, it will be because I have made a promise to Lady Susan, and so it is best that I remain silent on this subject.

After the fire, I knocked on every door in London and approached everyone I could think of. I humiliated myself at every bank and was laughed out of every drawing room of note in Town. Tom’s name was synonymous with broken promises by this time. But in my moment of greatest despair before returning to Sanditon empty-handed, Mrs Campion offered to put up the funds. I was so incredibly relieved. I felt that I had misunderstood her and that she must truly be selfless to offer to lend such a sum despite the fact that I had told her that my hopes and affections lay elsewhere. But I was wrong: the security she offered for her investment was marriage. The details she proposed for this transaction are too mortifying to put into words, and do not bear repeating for the preservation of her honour as well as my own, but I felt broken down and trapped. The alternative was to let Tom go to the debtor’s prison and see his family destroyed. 

I believed it was the punishment I deserved for the life I have led. I thought of the debts he had paid for me before I left for Antigua; I thought of the countless times he had picked me up and cleaned me up and tried to set me on the right path; I thought of dear Mary and the children. The only thing I could not bear to think of is the pain it would cause you. I had long since learned to live a shadow of a life. I did not want to go back to that after having glimpsed the happy possibility of a future with you, but I convinced myself that I could do it again if it meant saving Tom and Mary and the children. I decided that you would be better off in the end. That your pain would be short lived. That you would find someone better suited to you who would never disappoint you or whose past was not so besmirched and unworthy of you, and that I could carry the pain of that parting for both of us. How wrong I was! Another example of my being a fool in the extreme. Forgive me. Forgive me.

And now – I don’t know how, for I did not stop to ask before rushing to London – but between them Babington and Tom have managed to find new investors elsewhere, and Mrs Campion, seeing how worthless a life trapped by such a venal and loveless bargain would be, has released me from the engagement. 

I do not deserve this good fortune, but I cannot pretend that it has not come at a price, the most precious price of all – your trust. I cannot bear to think that I have shattered that or that you are in any small degree less open than you were before you met me. If you have found your happiness elsewhere, I will have been far more fortunate than I deserve, for I can say with all my heart that your happiness is truly all that matters. 

You may wonder why this was not told to you yesterday, but I was not sufficiently master of myself to know what ought or ought not to be revealed. I selfishly thought only of my own wishes. I do not want to entangle you in a correspondence or to further compromise you in any way. I have no expectations; when next we meet a word or look will be enough to tell if there is any hope for me. But if you will receive nothing else from me, please know that you have my eternal friendship, my service, my good wishes for your health and happiness. And I earnestly hope that you will accept them

from your,  
Sidney Parker

Chapter 21

If Charlotte, upon perceiving the letter was from Sidney, did not expect it to contain a renewal of his offers, she had formed no clear expectation at all of its contents. But it may well be supposed how eagerly she went through them and what emotions they excited. Her feelings were scarcely to be defined. (P&P) Charlotte read and re-read his letter almost the entire journey home, giving particular attention to the previously unknown details of his past conduct. She shed some tears to think how little she had known of him before, how her innocence and inexperience had likely prevented him from wanting her to know much of his past life. But this unflinching and honest account of his despair and of the missteps of conduct in his youth that she had only ever guessed at or viewed through a glass darkly shed new light on his previous confounding behaviour and repulsive reserve. She was very deeply touched and grateful for his trust in her. Far from being shocked or disgusted as he seemed to fear, she respected and esteemed him for seeking to understand and to remedy his past failures and to seek to do good and be better. But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive of goodwill that could not be overlooked. It was gratitude – gratitude not merely for having once loved her, but for loving and respecting her still, and ardently enough, to reveal himself fully and to trust in her judgement and sympathy.(P&P) After journeying for some hours, giving way to every variety of thought, reconsidering events and determining probabilities, fatigue at length sent her to sleep. Charlotte awoke refreshed and calm and in time to see the familiar walls of her father’s lands passing by. Recent rains had laid the dust, and she had half a mind to stop the carriage and walk the rest of the way. Knowing her mother might disapprove of her walking two miles alone in the gloaming, however, she instead pulled down the window and put her head out to breathe in the scent of wet grass and earth. The grey-purple skies of evening stretched far beyond the hills, turning the forest of ancient trees into a ragged black boundary between land and the vast heavens above. 

We shall leave most of the details of Charlotte’s second homecoming to the reader’s imagination, it was much was as it was the first time, and many happy hours were spent in describing the scenes of London society to her siblings and in handing ‘round the little gifts and tokens she had bought for all of them. Her parents noted her serenity with satisfaction and congratulated themselves for happening upon the solution to her previous discontent. She listened with cheerful interest to all the news from home: Alison was preparing for her visit to Sanditon in a few weeks’ time; three other brothers were expected back from Cambridge and Winchester by the end of Easter term; and a fourth had recently been promoted to captain in the navy and was currently awaiting his commission somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea. Since his marriage their eldest brother, and her father’s heir, Edward, and had taken over the running of the home farm from their father. Over the winter Edward had made great inroads in convincing Mr Heywood to modernize aspects of the farm business and was glad to hear that his sister also took an eager interest in and supported the plans. The five little ones, ranging in ages three to eight, clustered around at first, but they were soon ushered off to bed by one of the housemaids. All in all, the Heywoods were much as they ever had been – honest, affectionate, sensible – and Charlotte felt herself blessed to be returned home safely. As they retired for the evening to their chambers, Mr and Mrs Heywood conversed quietly about the change in their eldest daughter.

“How womanly Charlotte has grown. She’s quite a lady now, not so wild and unruly as before. Did you not mark it James? London appears to have done her some good, and she is in much better spirits as well. I believe we have Lady Susan to thank for that.”

“Hmm? Yes, my dear Elinor, I admit I cannot bear the place myself, but London appears to have done her no harm. She has grown into a very fine-looking woman, like her mother. But I am glad to see that she is ready to be useful and cheerful again. There is a time for balls and amusement and a time for work. At supper she had many interesting ideas for the new labourers houses and for a proper school in the village.”

Mrs Heywood smiled indulgently at her husband, whose dirty boots, she noted, had been flung across her clean carpet. Perhaps she entertained greater hopes for Charlotte’s future beyond labourers’ cottages on the estate, but as she was a woman of great sense and discretion, neither her husband nor my readers shall ever be privy to her exact thoughts on the subject.

In the weeks that followed Charlotte’s return home, summer arrived with the whimper to which English summers are wont; Alison departed for her season of amusement in Sanditon, taking with her a selection of her sister’s fine articles of dress; and Charlotte threw herself with renewed energy and activity into projects on the estate. She went out on horseback almost daily to survey new plots for building with her father and brother and undertook to discuss with the labourers and tenant families which of their needs might be best met. She felt calm and refreshed by being home, and though she thought of Sidney every day, of how he did and where he was, she did so with a new serenity. 

One afternoon in June, a fortnight after Alison had left for Sanditon and nearly five weeks since her own return home, Charlotte and a younger sister set off to the house of a nearby tenant farmer on an errand for their mother. Coming up the road in the distance Charlotte spied the black horse and neat coat and hat of her father’s closest gentleman neighbour. Mr Yates, a pleasant man of forty with three young sons, was expected to call this week about the purchase of a small parcel of land which would finance some of the planned improvements. Charlotte was very anxious that he be received properly and she sent her sister, Maria, a healthy and alert young girl of eight, back to the house to warn her father and brother; content that the business would soon be settled to everyone’s satisfaction she hurried to complete her errand. So pleasant was her intercourse with Mr and Mrs Martin and so comfortable and friendly was their hospitality that Charlotte was obliged to take her tea with them, and well over an hour had passed before she realised that she would be missed at home. Collecting the item for her mother and hastily excusing herself, Charlotte made her way back as quickly as possible. 

By the time she reached the top of the hill descending down to Willingden Hall, a burst of rain had drenched her through her shawl. And it was thus she entered the drawing room breathless, full of apologies, and in truth quite wet and disheveled. But she was stopped short; for on entering the room, the first object she beheld was Sidney Parker sat in comfortable conversation with her mother and father by the fire, bouncing her three-year-old brother on his knee. He saw her immediately and with a look of much respect and no little anxiety rose, gently placed young Frederick down, and gave a formal bow.

“Look who has come to call on us, Charlotte,” declared her mother. “You were absent from home and Mr Parker was forced to introduce himself.” 

Mrs Heywood smiled pleasantly, indicating in a few words how little such niceties mattered to her. Charlotte was struck dumb, but she could not deny the rising warmth and happiness she felt in seeing him. He came toward her with more doubt and timidity in his face than she had ever seen before. He was in a state of uncertainty which made him afraid lest some look or word of his should condemn him to a new distance from her; and Charlotte was afraid of her own emotion. (MM) Presently she met his look with a smile that she hoped would convey all that she felt. He relaxed visibly and said

“I hope you will forgive the intrusion Miss Heywood. I had business in this part of the country and your sister commissioned me with letters for her family. Mr and Mrs Parker also send their particular greetings to you.” 

Had Charlotte and Sidney had eyes for any other in the room at that moment they might have noticed the amused exchange of looks between Mr and Mrs Heywood, for the sudden appearance of this fine young man, determined to wait for Charlotte’s return and with no better excuse than to hand deliver Alison’s letters had raised immediate suspicions and shed no little light on the fluctuations in their daughter’s spirits since her return from Sanditon. The gentleman had not been with them ten minutes, before he had shown himself to be pleasant, unassuming company, perhaps not as open and as cheerful as his brother, but easy, gentle, and intelligent – they liked him quite as much as Tom Parker and respected his evident good sense even more. But their liking him could mean nothing before they determined Charlotte’s feelings. They directed their observation towards each with an earnest though guarded inquiry; and soon drew from those inquiries the full conviction that the gentleman at least knew what it was to love. (P&P) Charlotte’s glowing cheek and brightened eye convinced her mother that this visit though unexpected, was very welcome. And though he had already accepted her invitation to dine with the family that evening and stay for supper, after a moment’s consideration and observation of her daughter, Mrs Heywood ventured to suggest that Sidney might stay at Willingden Hall rather than take a room at the inn on the turnpike road. This was agreed by Mr Heywood and, after a glance at Charlotte whose assent could be seen in the happy confusion of her countenance, the offer was gratefully accepted and the housekeeper summoned to ready a chamber. 

Evening came, the dining parlour and drawing room were lighted up. It was an intimate family dinner of the kind they enjoyed almost every day, comprising Mr and Mrs Heywood, Charlotte, her older brother Edward, and his wife; the addition of Sidney Parker to their party enlivened their conversation beyond the usual topics and Charlotte had never found an evening shorter. Glowing and lovely in sensibility and happiness and more admired than she thought about, she was cheerful in having so many of those she most cared for together in one place and in such easy company with one another. (P) She was delighted to see Sidney so open and desirous to please, free from any of his previous self-consequence or unbending reserve which might have damaged him in her parents’ eyes. When he talked, she heard the same voice but without formality and reserve, and she discerned the same active and striving mind. He was very much questioned by her brother as to all manner of affairs and gave Edward sound advice on conducting the negotiations for the sale of the land. For his part, Sidney showed a genuine interest in her brother’s plans for a new drain on the home farm, the felling of a tree, and what every field was to bear next year. And Edward’s growing good will were confirmed in his extending an invitation to return to Willingden to shoot in the autumn. Sidney seemed rather gratified by this, and said politely that he very much hoped it would be in his power to accept. She was astonished that he took such an interest in Willingden and knew so much about the management of a country estate, and she smiled to herself at the thought that she had once dismissed him as being nothing more than a self-important London dandy. For his part, Sidney was surprised at how easy it was to converse with Charlotte’s family and he admired their unassuming intelligence and modest good sense. Mr and Mrs Heywood seemed to be particularly happy and attached to one another, and he felt at ease in their company. 

While the young people were thus occupied, Mr Heywood remained quiet and thoughtful and by and by, he said to Sidney.

“How fares your brother’s ventures in Sanditon, Mr Parker? Charlotte told us of the shocking fire last summer, but it seems not to have made a jot of difference to his plans, from what I have lately heard.”

Sidney hesitated a moment in his reply, sensing perhaps that Mr Heywood was setting something of a trap for him. He managed to be both honest and loyal in his presentation of his brother’s situation. Though he admitted that the fire had been a great setback for them all, he made clear that the Parkers affairs were now in order. He mentioned the involvement of Mr Stringer and himself in a way which suggested that Tom’s excesses were now under good regulation. Though satisfied by this response, Mr Heywood could not resist saying,

“Every five years one hears of one or other of these places growing the fashion. How they find half the people with the money and the time to fill them is a wonder to me. Your brother tried to convince me of the merits of such private speculation, Mr Parker, but I confess I cannot see it. Many a fine fishing village has been ruined and its fishermen and residents driven away in a bid to build assembly rooms, public walks, theatres and racecourses! It’s an unaccountable, unstable business and a bad thing for the countryside, raising the price of provisions and rents, drawing labourers off the land, and making them fit for nothing but the squalor of a city courtyard. One sees it everywhere now, market towns tearing down old squares and streets, and widening the roads into promenades, all for the sake for what everyone in ‘polite society’ tells me is ‘improvement’”

“I cannot agree entirely with you, Papa”, cried Charlotte. “To be sure there is much speculation in such places, and there cannot but be terrible consequences when it goes wrong or is irresponsibly done…” Charlotte looked conscious for a moment. But Sidney seemed undisturbed by this reference to Tom and indeed nodded his agreement to her words. “... or where the improvement sought is superficial, for individual gains, or only a byword for the rich being able to further enrich themselves at the expense of others; but you must acknowledge that there are also many benefits to seeking to make improvements: wider streets in a town improve ventilation and are generally believed to be healthier and safer as well as more beautiful; charity schools and subscription hospitals help people who had no recourse to such things before; all this activity and even the pursuit of ‘politeness’, you know, can have its benefits in bringing disparate people together, increasing tolerance of religion, social class, or race. These are surely to be celebrated, are they not?” 

“And what of the improvements we are making on the estate, father? The new farming methods? – they will serve to keep us on our land for many more generations and ensure that we are able to properly provide for those who depend upon us,” said Edward.

Charlotte added to this with some warmth,

“Yes, a private speculator may have no less worthy a cause in mind, for all that it is a town he seeks to improve.” 

“Well, my dears,” said Mr Heywood to his children affectionately, “much of what you say may be true, though I do think you attribute far too much of the worthy to such schemes. In the vast majority of cases I dare say that the improvement which passes for altruism is driven by self-interest. Those who stand to gain are ever the same when more people and goods can travel faster along new turnpike roads, or a workforce is made healthier for longer through subscription hospitals, and rents and income are doubled through enclosure and efficient farming techniques.”

“That is true, sir,” said Sidney. “But the welfare of all can sometimes be best served by individuals pursuing their own interests. In order to avoid the worst kinds of individual excess, private interest must also care for and work towards the general good”. 

“I see” cried Mr Heywood with a laugh “that the young people mean to have their own way this evening!” and turning to Sidney, towards whom he had started to have a rather warm and friendly feeling, said

“You perceive Mr Parker that we value honest opinion at this table. You will find no falseness or pretense in the service of politeness here; my daughters are able to hold their own in disputation as well as their brothers. They were raised to be rational creatures, not just fine ladies, so that they might be equipped to live in the world and not be deterred at the first obstacle.” 

“I would not wish it any other way, Sir. We none of us expect to be in smooth waters all our days.”(P)

Charlotte felt her cheeks grow warm, but before her father could continue further down this line, Mrs Heywood thankfully withdrew with the ladies. Charlotte caught Sidney’s eye as she left the room and they smiled at one another. There was a flutter of agitation about what might be discussed, but she need not have worried. Her father was very perceptive in his way and though it was clear to him which direction the wind blew as regards Charlotte and Sidney, he was modern enough to wish for his daughters to manage their own lives – provided they chose well – independent of his interference.

Chapter 22

In the month that had passed since he had seen and spoken to Charlotte in London, Sidney had learned a difficult but valuable lesson in patience and self-control. He had not expected nor requested an answer to his letter but he was nonetheless impatient to know what her feelings were upon reading it. It had taken no little self-command to prevent himself from riding after her forthwith. He had placed no stronger obstacle to coming to Willingden than his own resolve, which was by no means an iron barrier, but simply a state of mind. (MM) His character might be called headstrong, and a quality of fearlessness of person united with strong feeling had accustomed him to act and speak rather than to wait and think. He had managed to govern his impulse, however, and returned to Sanditon to make himself useful until such time had passed that he might find a way to meet with Charlotte again and make his case properly, but he had gone to the wrong place. There was too much domestic happiness in his brother’s house, and Alison’s arrival presented a daily reminder of Charlotte.(E) His feelings had by no means become a topic of discourse, but Alison who was just as perceptive and perhaps more pert in manner than her sister, through the commission of delivering letters to her home on his way to London, gave him to understand that his appearance in Willingden would not be unwelcome. 

They had spoken very little to one another in the drawing room after dinner, but if eyes could speak they might say volumes and Charlotte’s eyes had been very expressive indeed – full of a new tenderness and trust. Sidney wondered how it was possible for him to be even more deeply in love than last summer and yet what he felt in her presence now was beyond anything previously imaginable. As he retired to his chamber after supper, Sidney had leave to consider the encouraging events of the day and to plan a private interview with Charlotte on the morrow after breakfast. 

He awoke very early to a bright June sun that presaged a hot, dry day. He felt a great deal more hope than he had in a twelve-month, and in this state of mind prepared to go down for breakfast with alacrity. Sidney entered the breakfast room, however, to find Mr Heywood alone, reading his newspapers and drinking his coffee serenely.

“You keep a farmer’s hours, Sir!” said Mr Heywood in great amusement. “I should not have expected it. You’ll find, however, that the ladies will not be down until eight.”

“Indeed” said Sidney smiling and glancing at the clock above the mantelpiece chiming quarter to six. “I confess it is not my usual hour for rising, sir, but it is so fine a day and the sun is already so bright that I do not feel the earliness at all.” 

Mr Heywood gestured for him to sit, and the two men shared a comfortable meal and quiet conversation about the news of the day and the activities on the farm. It was the time of that brief lull before the harvest and Mr Heywood’s thoughts and plans had turned towards mowing before heavy midsummer rains. Edward had organised that the labourers would make a start this morning, and Mr Heywood had arisen particularly early in order to observe their progress in his hayfields.  
“While we sit here with our coffee and our roll, the men will have long since started the mowing, and I must show my face among them. I shall walk.” He rose from the table, and observing Sidney shrewdly for a moment, asked, “Would you care to join me Mr Parker?” Sidney was enthusiastic in his agreement, remembering similar excursions he had taken with his father as a boy. He sprang from his chair and the two gentlemen set off together on foot in the in the rising heat of the morning sun. As they walked, Mr Heywood (with a shake of his head to show what he thought of such foolishness) pointed out to Sidney with his stick the steep, rough track where Tom and Mary had overturned their chaise over a year ago. 

They soon reached the crest of a low hill from which Sidney had a clear view below of the workers in the meadow, the ridges of mown grass, and the dark piles of coats thrown down by the mowers when they started mowing. The men were already finished their second row and having their breakfast break when Sidney perceived with some surprise, and envy, that Edward had been working among them. Spying them on the hill Edward, who had been with the men since daybreak, ran up the hill in his shirtsleeves to join them and to tell his father that as they were a few men short he’d decided to mow with the labourers for the morning. His father smiled his approval, for he was a gentleman farmer of the old school and did not hold with notions of a master who held himself aloof from or above the work he demanded of his workers.  
“I almost envy you it, Edward; I’m afraid I am too old for that kind of thing now. Though there’s nothing better than a day of honest exertion in the field for a young man.”

“I would like to help, Edward. If you will allow it,” said Sidney suddenly. The other two men looked at him with mild surprise and a touch of incredulity, but measuring Sidney’s strength and stature in a glance Edward was disposed to agree.

“I’ve only done it a few times myself, but it’s a splendid form of exercise, only you’ll hardly be able to stand tomorrow.” He said without a hint of irony. “It’s hard work at first, but once you get into the rhythm of it you’ll find there’s no time for thinking. You seem a strong sort Sidney, I dare say you shall manage to keep up if you watch and follow Jacob. He cuts straight as a thread!”

The two young men headed down the hill together, and Mr Heywood looked after them with satisfaction. Sidney deposited his coat and vest on the pile, and after some quick instruction he fell into line beside Jacob, a taciturn man nearing sixty. He mowed badly at first though he swung with vigor, but as they advanced and as he watched and imitated Jacob’s movements more closely, he seemed to improve. They advanced many paces and still Jacob kept on, without stopping or showing the slightest sign of fatigue; but Sidney was already beginning to feel tired. He swung his scythe using his last ounce of strength and was making his mind to ask Jacob to stop when at that very moment he stopped of his own accord to wipe and whet his blade. Sidney straightened his back with a sigh of relief and the man behind him did the same, evidently also tired, and they all wiped and whetted their scythes, and went on. The same thing happened the next time, just when Sidney felt he had no strength left they stopped and whetted their scythes. When they reached the end of their row, Jacob turned and slowly retraced his steps and Sidney followed, aware that large drops of sweat were rolling down his face and dripping from his nose down his chest, and that his shirt was drenched as if it had been soaked in water. He felt happy, and what delighted him most was that now he knew he would be able to hold out.

His satisfaction was marred only by observing that his row was not good, and he compared his uneven and irregularly lying grass with Jacob’s straight row. The next rows were easier, but still he had to strain every nerve not to fall behind the men.

He thought of nothing, wished for nothing, except not to be left behind and to do his work as well as possible. He heard nothing save the swish of the knives, and saw nothing but the receding upright figure of Jacob in front of him, the crescent curve of the cut grass, the grass and flowerheads falling about the blade and ahead of him the end of the row where rest awaited. Swath followed swath. They mowed long rows and short rows, good grass and poor grass. Sidney lost all count of time. A change had begun to come over his work, and in those moments when he forgot what he was doing and he mowed without effort, his line was smooth.

At the end of the row, Jacob suddenly stopped and it occurred to Sidney that they had been working for hours on end. “Come, sir, have some of my dinner,” said Jacob handing him bread sprinkled with salt and a tin cup full of water from the stream, and truly Sidney was sure he had never tasted any meal so delicious as this bread nor drink so good as this cool water with bits of grass floating in it. He shared Jacob’s meal and chatted to him about family affairs, and told him about his own affairs. The old chap soon lay down under a tree, putting some grass under his head for a pillow and Sidney did the same. When he awoke he found Jacob had been awake some time and sat whetting the scythes of the younger lads. Rousing himself, Sidney was eager to go on and as the men stood up from their dinner break the mowing continued as before. 

In the heat of the day it did not seem such hard work. The perspiration with which he was drenched cooled him, while the sun that burned his back and his arms, bare to the elbow, gave a vigour and dogged energy to his labour. The longer Sidney mowed the oftener he experienced those blessed moments of oblivion when the scythe seemed to mow of itself and with a consciousness of its own. He did not know how time was passing. Had he been asked how long he had been working he would have answered “half an hour” – work progressed quickly but the sun was now starting its descent in the summer sky threading streaks of grey, orange and white through a glowing yellow mist. Soon enough the last swath was finished. Sidney looked about him and hardly recognised it. The meadow was mown and the sweet-smelling hay shone in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun. The river, not visible before, now curved and gleamed in the distance. He and Edward exchanged the camaraderie of an honest day’s work done outdoors, and as Sidney returned to a blissful, slow saunter he felt a pleasant sensation of breeze on his hot, perspiring shoulders. He swept an arm across his wet brow and moved his shoulders up and down enjoying the refreshing coolness. (entire mowing scene above shamelessly lifted from AK!) 

Raising his eyes to the hill where he had stood with Mr Heywood – how many hours ago? – he saw Charlotte looking down at him. His heart leapt into his throat at the sight of her, and he wondered how long had she been standing there. 

Edward had business with his steward and went on without him, sending a message to his mother that he would dine in his own home tonight. The men were putting on their coats and gaily trudging home; Sidney could hear their rough happy voices, boisterous laughter and the sound of clanking scythes, and he gathered up his own things and walked towards Charlotte with a mind clearer than he had ever known it to be.

The sight of her waiting for him on the crest of the hill; her acceptance of the evening sun on her face; the breeze moving her hair and the skirts of her dress; her dark eyes quiet and loving, was like drinking the cool water of the stream again. Yes, he was glad to see her; there was no one else he wanted to see at this precious moment when he felt as near perfectly peaceful as he had ever felt in his life.

As he approached he became suddenly conscious of how he must appear and turned almost bashful under the frankness of her gaze, which he could not quite read. He recalled a time at the cove in Sanditon when she had stumbled upon him in a worse state and had turned and run away in horror. He felt somehow more exposed now, and yet she did not turn from him. 

“I am sent to fetch you back for dinner,” she said with a gentle smile. “And it appears that you have earned it today.”

“I must look a sight.” He gestured down at his smudged and sunburnt arms and at his damp and open shirt with apology; he raised his hands to inspect the blisters on them. Charlotte caught sight of these too and without thinking grasped them in her own to inspect the wounds.

“Oh Sidney! These must be bathed and cleaned directly,” she cried “I am sure Betty will have a salve we can use on this one and if …” but she was compelled to stop her ministrations when the hands she had taken suddenly covered and held her own.

“You have never called me by my name before,” he said quietly, still holding tightly to her hands. “Charlotte, if your feelings are what they were a month ago please say so now, else I shall claim you as my own in some presumptuous way. Send me away at once, if I must go.” (P&P,N&S)

She could not; she would not. In an instant Sidney's arms were around her. It was never known whose lips moved first towards the other; but in their kiss was a years’ worth of love stored and saved for this moment. The delicious silence was followed by words that should have been spoken a year before, but this love, not new, but ever so much more complete and ever so much more enriched by a better and more thorough understanding of each other left both trembling with joy. What should have been a short walk back to Willingden Hall took treble the usual time, and it was with very great reluctance that they parted from each other in the hallway for the hour that Sidney needed to bathe and dress for dinner.

Chapter 23

Sidney meant to ask for her father’s consent in the course of the evening and Charlotte reserved to herself her application for her mother’s. Soon after dinner when Mr Heywood withdrew to his study, she watched, with no little agitation, as Sidney rose also and followed him, for the one cloud on her happiness was the confession which Sidney felt he was honour-bound to make. The story of the engagement with Mrs Campion, would make her father, with his strict sense of honour, very uncomfortable, she knew.

Mr Heywood’s library, which was used freely by all the family, was made worthy of its name by the quantity, quality, and variety of books lining its walls, but the room adjacent, which the family called his study, seemed more truly his own, housing as it did his coats, boots, gaiters, his different sticks and favourite spud, his gun and his fishing rod as well as accounts and papers for affairs on the estate. (W&D) There was an air of old-fashioned comfort in the room, such as characterized the rest of the house, and indeed the gentleman himself. Mr Heywood offered him a chair near the fire, seating himself in the one opposite and turning his keen observant eyes on the younger man said  
“Well then, Mr Parker. I can think of only one reason for you to have followed me so brazenly into my inner sanctum this evening: You have asked my daughter for her hand – and she has given it?”  
Sidney’s bronzed cheeks took a deeper shade and he smiled, ducking his head for a moment almost ashamed and frightened of the joy he felt at the thought of Charlotte as his wife.  
“Yes Sir. I hope you do not disapprove.”  
“My dear boy!” said Mr Heywood, laying his hand on Sidney’s shoulder and more affected than he liked to admit by the young man who had been a stranger to him only the day before. Encouraged by this reception, but determined not to conceal anything that might give Mr Heywood pause in his consent, Sidney rallied his courage and spoke honestly of the circumstances of his past and of the events of last year that had kept him from Charlotte despite having been attached to her since last summer. With the consciousness of real sensibility, he did not attempt to conceal or to mitigate his own and his brother’s mistakes. At the end of this recitation, Mr Heywood was silent for what felt to Sidney a very long while. For a moment his own diffidence on the question of deserving Charlotte made him almost despair of her father’s consent, but he need not have feared, for he did not address himself to an uncandid judge or an obdurate heart. Far from comprehending him in his brother’s misconduct, Mr Heywood was kindly disposed to the man who had shown himself to be honest, sensible, gentle, and unaffected and saw only strong feeling, obstinacy, youthful error and perhaps too little self-regard and too much loyalty towards those whom he loved – hardly faults at all to one such as Mr Heywood whose value for action and candour could not be overstated. He saw at once that theirs would be a marriage of equal merits – his daughter would be cherished and her talents respected; her lively intelligence and good sense would in turn steady and guide her husband’s more headstrong nature. 

“And what means have you of maintaining a wife, Mr Parker? Charlotte can expect two thousand pounds now and a thousand more when I die. It is not much, but it’s no small sum in so large a family.” Mr Heywood was well satisfied by Sidney’s account of his independent fortune which amounted to £25,000, and acknowledged to himself that under every pecuniary view, it was a match beyond the claims of his daughter’s fortune. His only stipulation was that they wait until October to marry, to allow a more appropriate elapse of time between the end of his previous engagement and the start of his marriage. Although Sidney could not wish for a moment’s delay in making Charlotte his own, he was not inclined to resist and was greatly relieved by such unlooked for mildness. 

“Then you sanction the engagement, Sir?”

“I don’t know what you mean by sanctioning it. I can’t help it. I suppose losing one’s daughter is a necessary evil. Still,” – seeing the disappointed expression on Sidney’s face – “it is fair to say that I’d rather give my Charlotte to you than to any man in the world.”

“Thank you, Sir!” said Sidney, shaking hands with Mr Heywood warmly. (W&D)

Sidney returned to the drawing room to find Charlotte and her mother alone. Seeing Charlotte’s anxiety, he cheered her with a wide smile, and Mrs Heywood lost no time in congratulating them both. She soon found reason to leave the young lovers alone for a half an hour while she searched for some silk thread misplaced in her workroom. 

Not long after, the family retired to bed and Sidney collapsed on his mattress and fell into a slumber more deep and peaceful than he had ever known.

Chapter 24

The season of their courtship was one of great pleasure and planning, and it was heightened by the universal joy and approbation of all their friends and family: letters had been sent and received from Mary and Tom, Diana and Arthur, Mr & Mrs Molyneaux, Lady Susan, Lord and Lady Babington and even Mr Crowe; and Alison had found four sides of paper insufficient to contain all her delight and pride at having brought it about through her ingenious machination of sending Sidney to Willingden on an errand. Sidney’s bedchamber which had been hastily made up after his unexpected invitation to stay had now become his permanent apartment, and during his time in Willingden he made his value felt to Mr Heywood and Edward on the estate. Charlotte’s three brothers not at sea – Luke, John and Francis – returned home for the summer from Cambridge and Winchester, and in time Alison too returned home from Sanditon; they found Sidney to be easy and pleasant company and looked forward to welcoming him as a brother. During the six months that had to be endured before their marriage Sidney was sometimes called away to London or Sanditon on business, but he always rode back to Willingden as soon as possible through any weather or discomfort, anxious and eager to take his beloved Charlotte in his arms and incredulous each time that no calamity had come to separate them again. At these moments of reunion Charlotte’s family was kind enough to find occupation elsewhere. 

One afternoon in September after a longer absence than usual, Charlotte’s spirits now rising to playfulness and security, wanted Sidney to account for his ever having fallen in love with her.

“How could you begin?” she said as they walked together among the hills a few weeks before their wedding. “What set you off in the first place?”

“I cannot fix on the exact hour or spot, but I found myself in the middle of it before I even knew I had begun.” (P&P)

“Do you recall how you mistook me for your sister’s maid when first we met? And then at the ball – you thought me nothing more than an impertinent little miss who had strayed from her daily diet of needlework and piano practice and needed to be taught a lesson.”

“I was a brute to you Charlotte. You did nothing to deserve such treatment – Mary’s maid indeed! I am heartily ashamed of myself, but if I must muster some defence against this damning evidence I might now admit that when I first saw you with Mary I was so curious that I concealed my interest with that clumsy comment and even pretended – yes, I am a preening blockhead – not to remember your name!” 

Charlotte was just as delighted by this admission now as she had been stung by his words at the time.

“At the ball, I wanted to find out more about you, but I told myself I would not ask you to dance. And once we were dancing, almost by accident, your conversation and observations surprised me. Still, I was determined not to be interested in you. I believe I was looking for any reason to dismiss you and I seized upon the first opportunity you gave me.” 

“I was mortified by your coldness and by your rebuke.”

“I was well practiced in the art of coldness, Charlotte. It had served me faithfully over the years. I admitted very few to my confidence and certainly no young ladies with searching dark eyes and lips as red as summer cherries.” 

“You were not the only one at fault. It was presumptuous and pert of me to give my opinions of your family so freely.”

“What did you say that was not true? Even when you apologised so sweetly, my conduct – I cannot bear to think of it now! I regretted my words almost as soon as they were said, but I thought that at least you would keep your distance. But your reproof was so perceptive, I shall never forget it: if you really don’t care, I wonder that you take the trouble to be so offensive and hurtful. You saw right through me. And again, at Lady Denham’s awful luncheon – you would not be patronised and were the only one brave enough to defend Georgiana! How I admired you that day.” 

Here they allowed themselves a laugh at Arthur’s handling of the pineapple.

“And after that you were everywhere – I could not escape you.” They both blushed at the memory of their meeting at the cove.

“I was aware of your presence everywhere I went. You were the first person my eyes searched for when I entered a room or when I stepped onto the street. I told myself that it was because I wanted to avoid you, but in fact I could not help but place myself in your path. And your cool handling of Mr Stringer’s accident! I knew I had grossly misjudged you then, but I believe it was at the cricket match when I felt myself to be truly in some danger. I was both confounded and attracted by you.”

“Though I mocked you and judged your dealings with Georgiana?”

“I was mortified by your mimicry, I confess. But you were not far wrong when it came to Georgiana. I refused to see that she needed more than a guardian of her fortune and her person. You showed me that she needed sympathy, understanding, a friend.”

“You are too kind to me, Sidney! I was naïve and headstrong and – angry. You had dismissed me and I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t care for your opinion, that you were wrong in everything you did and that I knew better. I put Georgiana and myself in danger. I shudder to think what might have happened had you not come upon me in London.”

“If I had known that it was you I was defending, I might now be facing a judge or worse!”

They were both silent for a while, while they contemplated events in London, and an uneasy frown settled on Charlotte’s face.

“What is it my love?”

She struggled to find the words to express what she wanted to say. 

“I know that young men are not always…chaste…. before marriage…that they have many opportunities at university and in Town for ladies’ company, but I want to know…In London, that…that place… did you go there often?” 

Sidney took a deep breath, and he reddened with shame and regret. He stopped and put his hands either side of Charlotte’s face, tilting it to look up at him. It was agonizing. He did not want to trouble her with his confessions, but there must be no secrets between them if they were to be married.

“I did go there on several occasions before I went to Antigua, but I have not been to that establishment or any like it for above six years. I cannot explain why I went, for I always felt ashamed afterwards. I was very young and the gentlemen in my circle and from my club went often – it seemed a normal and natural thing for men to do. Though I stopped going to such establishments, there were one or two other… dalliances… over the years, with actresses and the like. It was never love, nothing to what I feel for you.” he frowned a moment searching for a word that might explain to her “It was loneliness and … need.” 

Her eyes filled with tears. “Do you not need me?” 

She said earnestly, not knowing enough to be embarrassed by the question. He could not help but smile incredulously at her innocence, bending to kiss her gently first on her lips, then on her cheeks, then on her neck.

“Yes, you cannot know how much, but that’s because I love you. It’s different, more essential than before…I don’t know if you can understand now, but you will once we are married. I was lonely then and lost; I had nothing to occupy me but the pursuit of my own indulgence, but when I am with you there is no need for others. I have no better excuse to offer for my past behavior. I have long since looked back at that time with disgust and shame, but I give you my word that it will never happen again. Can you forgive me? do you despise me?”

“What is there to forgive? I wanted to understand it better, that is all. I could never despise you, Sidney, but I am glad that you have not concealed this from me.”

“I shall never conceal anything from you, Charlotte.”

Chapter 25

And so dear reader, within a fortnight of this important conversation and confession upon which so much of their marriage might thrive or fail, Charlotte and Sidney were married in Willingden church, and without any of the finery and parade that many in Town might have thought necessary. Lady Denham no doubt approved of this. The bells rang and their friends smiled, and as this took place little over a twelve month from their first falling in love, it will not appear, after all the dreadful heartache, despair and separation, that they were essentially hurt by it. To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of 23 and 29, is to do pretty well, and professing myself moreover convinced that the ten months during which they were separated from one another so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it by improving their knowledge of each other and adding strength to their attachment. (NA) 

Sanditon continued to thrive under the inimitable and irrepressible vision of Tom Parker, the elegant and practical planning of James Stringer, and the careful and prudent management of Sidney Parker. The Parkers were indeed favoured by fortune, for not long after the group of faithful friends came together to save their friends from the despair of a life and love unfulfilled, no personage greater than the Prince Regent himself deigned to take an interest in the fortunes of Sanditon, rewarding the place if not with his actual presence then with his financial patronage. Where the Prince Regent, soon to be King, showed favour, others followed and Sanditon was soon a veritable success. The Prince commissioned his royal architect Mr Nash to design a pagoda for Sanditon in honour of his ascending to the throne; and Mr Nash was so impressed with James Stringer’s talent that the latter soon found himself not only a partner in the rising fortunes of Sanditon but also a pupil and assistant of the great architect himself with a growing practice in London. And with an income to match, dear reader, you may not find it surprising that Stringer’s thoughts soon turned to matrimony. Perhaps you have already surmised that during her summer in Sanditon, Alison Heywood, so similar to her sister in beauty and spirit but with the added benefit of a more forthright nature, attracted the admiration and ardent love of Mr Stringer almost immediately and was, in her turn, so evidently in love with that worthy and handsome young man that it was made clear to their family and friends that another wedding was not far off. 

Eliza, it was said, would not bear the name Campion for much longer, as she had found the companion for her life and fortune in penniless but fashionable Lord Strachton, whose leaky roof needed as much tending as his heart. Sir John Fairfax, too, by and by, found a queen for his hearth, and one indeed almost as worthy as he had once thought Charlotte to be.

From the steps of the church Charlotte and Sidney’s carriage took them to the steps of their home of Whytcliffe, which had fortunately been vacated of its tenants just as Sidney was wanting to bring his new bride there as mistress. Charlotte delighted in the garden, orchard, meadows, and sea views of her new home; she delighted in fitting up her snug and comfortable house to her and her husband’s satisfaction; but most of all she delighted in a marriage where there could be no secrets and no fear of separation. Sidney’s passionate and gentle tutelage in the pleasures of a loving bond between man and wife was a source of infinite surprise and joy for Charlotte, for they were bound together by a love stronger than any impulse that could have marred it.


End file.
